FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. (WINK)\u2014Homeowners across Southwest Florida are being urged to review their insurance policies ahead of hurricane season to avoid being underinsured.<\/p>\n
Mike Dagnese has weathered more than 40 years of hurricanes at his Fort Myers<\/a> Beach home. During Hurricane Ian<\/a>, eight feet of water flooded his property, sending cars floating and scattering his belongings everywhere.<\/p>\n While the rebuild was challenging, Dagnese said his insurance coverage came through. Before Ian, he carried wind, flood, and homeowners’ insurance.<\/p>\n “They only like to give you $100,000 in contents, so we knew that was no problem reaching that mark, because I have so many things around here after 40 years,” Dagnese said. “They gave us money, and it pretty much came close to covering it.”<\/p>\n Not everyone in Southwest Florida has had the same experience with their insurance claims.<\/p>\n “You can be insured incorrectly or underinsured your whole life and never realize it’s a problem until something happens,” said Mark Wilcox, owner of Wilcox Family Insurance.<\/p>\n Wilcox said many homeowners don’t realize how high construction costs can be to rebuild, leaving them underinsured.\u00a0<\/p>\n “A lot of homes, especially policies that have been in place for over five or six years, which a lot have, construction costs have gone up so much, and a lot of people aren’t aware of that,” Wilcox said.<\/p>\n Wilcox said homeowners must be insured at a certain percentage of the replacement cost, meaning a home valued at $500,000 but insured for only $300,000 creates problems beyond total-loss scenarios.<\/p>\n With hurricane season approaching, Wilcox said now is the time to prepare policies. He recommends reviewing coverage limits and any recent updates to homes or local ordinances.<\/p>\n “Ordinance or law is a huge factor in Florida right now, that basically helps you get back to code for an older house,” Wilcox said. “So, if you have a house built in the 70s, so much has changed with your house that you may not have had to update or upgrade.”<\/p>\n Dagnese offered his own advice for fellow homeowners.<\/p>\n “Definitely flood insurance if you’re in a flood zone, that’s well worth it,” Dagnese said.<\/p>\n Wilcox said rates are going down and coverage is increasing, making now a great time for homeowners to review their policies with their insurance agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. (WINK)\u2014Homeowners across Southwest Florida are being urged to review their insurance policies ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,3837,325,115,121785],"class_list":["post-289578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-lee","tag-news","tag-southwest_florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}