Agents Report Limited Damage But More Claims Expected As Floridians Return Home

Insurance agents and carriers in the path of Hurricane Milton reported only minor damage to their own offices and homes but a rapidly growing number of claims from residential and commercial policyholders for roof, flood and auto damage.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation reported that as of late Thursday, carriers had seen almost 1,900 claims, most of those from residential properties. The early estimate of insured losses from those claims was more than $21 million, a total that will rise sharply in coming days as insurers report data to OIR.

In the Tampa area, which saw high winds and some storm surge, commercial lines agent Karen Roeling said she had heard from insureds on at least 200 claims, including commercial flood policy claims.

“The storm surge was not as bad as Helene’s, but there was some flooding,” Roeling said Friday.

A number of gas stations and convenience stores lost canopies over gas pumps, vehicles were flooded, and trees were down, but no clients reported that roofs had been ripped off of commercial properties, she said.

Some of worst storm surge and wind damage was in the Siesta Key and Sarasota area, south of Tampa. But with power and cellphone service out for more than a day, several insurance agents there could not be reached Friday or said they were too busy to talk.

“Our offices didn’t get any damage but our insureds did,” said Laura Brown, with Atlas Insurance in Sarasota. Claims are slowing coming in as policyholders return to their properties and communications are restored, she said.

In Lakewood Ranch, east of Sarasota, homes lost some shingles and experienced some leaks, said Lori Augustyniak, who lives in Lakewood Ranch, and is president of the Professional Insurance Agents of Florida.

“We lost power for 25 hours. It just came back on last night,” and agents are still assessing damage from the storm, said Augustyniak, principal at Horizon Insurance.

She noted that although the area had yet to see significant inland flooding from Milton’s rainfall, people were keeping an eye on the Manatee River and other rivers that could swell in coming days.

“We were very fortunate,” said Ron Assise, senior vice president of The Horton Group insurance brokerage.

The group has offices in Bonita Springs and Assise lives in the Fort Myers area. He said the wind and storm surge from Milton was “dramatically different” from that of Hurricane Ian, which slammed the Fort Myers area in 2022.

The Baldwin Group, one of the largest U.S. agencies, has headquarters in Tampa. The offices survived without damage and were accessible to staff members, said Anna Rozenich, communications director for Baldwin.

USAA’s corporate offices in Tampa sustained no real damage but will remain closed until Monday, spokesperson Rebekah Nelson said Friday. The carrier, which specializes in insuring members of the military, veterans and their families, is sending multiple out-of-state employees into Florida to help with claims and customer service.

By Friday morning, USAA had seen about 4,000 claims from Milton, for residential properties and for vehicles, Nelson said. That compares to a multi-state total of about 80,000 claims from Hurricane Helene, which brought major flooding to parts of the Southeast in late September.

Florida Peninsula Insurance Co, with more than 80,000 policies in the state, is managing the aftermath of the storm, said Stacey Giulianti, co-founder of Florida Peninsula and chief legal officer of Windward Risk Managers.

“Our family of companies is faring very well in these extremely trying times in Florida,” Giulianti said in an email Friday. “We currently have no hold times for claims reporting, and initial inspections are being scheduled quickly.”

On the east coast of Florida, where a Milton-spawned tornado ripped apart buildings, agents reported minor damage to their own offices and few claims from clients, so far.

“Some cracked windshields, a few roofs, that sort of thing – the same old story in Florida,” said Mary Jane Blevins, an agent with Port St. Lucie Insurance Agency.

Meanwhile, the state’s largest insurer, Citizens Property Insurance Corp., is likely to see largest number of claims from Milton. But the losses are expected to be manageable for the state-created insurer, and will not trigger an assessment on Floridians’ insurance premiums, a Citizens official told the Tampa Bay Times.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Yaworsky also said in a statement that Milton, which had reached Category 5 winds before weakening slightly before landfall, will not be catastrophic for the insurance industry.

“It appears that the once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe event was largely avoided,” Commissioner Michael Yaworsky said Thursday, the Times reported.

Despite early estimates that insured losses in Florida from Milton could top $50 billion, “the marketplace is poised to weather the impacts of these storms effectively,” he noted, crediting 2022 and 2023 legislative reforms that took away incentives that insurers said had led to an explosion of costly claims litigation.

Top photo: A drone shot of roof damage in Lakewood Ranch, east of Sarasota. Roof damage claims are expected to pile up in coming days. (Photo courtesy of Matt Mercier.)