Did your State Farm premium go up recently?

State Farm policyholders in Florida may notice a considerable increase in their premium when they receive their next renewal in the mail.

Over the summer State Farm was given approval by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation to eliminate several of the credits they offer on their policies. Because of this many home insurance customers may see their premium increase 28% or more. The discounts that were eliminated or reduced are:

• Monitored alarm systems- Homes with monitored alarms will no longer receive a discount.
• Upgrades to plumbing, A/C & heating units, electrical systems- If you have received credit for these upgrades, your discount will be reduced.
• Claim-free- Insureds who had no or few claims will no longer be rewarded with a discount.
• Multiple policy discount- Many State Farm customers have multiple insurance policies with them, i.e. home, auto, liability, business, etc. They will no longer receive a discount for having more than one line of business with State Farm.

The discounts will be reduced/eliminated starting with December renewals and we have already heard from several clients who have seen their premiums jump. Just last week we spoke to two clients who received their State Farm renewal policies and were shocked to see how much their premium went up. One increased by $400 and the other by $1500!

We were able to work with each of these clients to quickly find them new home insurance and auto insurance so they were able to cancel their State Farm policies and begin saving immediately.

If you would like to find out what options you have to replace your State Farm policy, please call us at 866.786.4613 or contact us via e-mail at info@suninsuranceservices.com. We look forward to working with you.


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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

Home insurance discount program gives rise to fraud

When our clients contact us looking for ways to save money on their home insurance the first thing we tell them is to have a wind mitigation inspection completed for their home. This is an inspection performed by a licensed professional who examines your home to see what features it has that strengthen it against windstorms & hurricanes. Hip roofs, storm shutters and impact resistant windows are a few examples of features that earn you credits.

Once they have inspected the home they give you a report outlining what insurance discounts you may be eligible for and you submit this for to your insurance agent, who in turns processes it with the insurance carrier. The inspection costs about $150 and the savings can be significant. We've had clients save anywhere from $200 up to $1400!

This program has been in effect for seven years now and everyone agrees that people who take measures to protect their homes from hurricane damage should receive discounts on their home insurance. Unfortunately the program is being taken advantage of by some private inspectors with questionable credentials who guarantee savings for everyone. They produce reports that indicate the homeowner is eligible for far more credits than they should actually receive, essentially turning the program into an insurance giveaway.

Citizens Property Insurance has already begun a small scale audit of their policyholders to verify that the credits that have been given are warranted. If they find enough evidence of fraud in this initial audit, they will launch a full-fledged investigation.

If your home was built before 2002 and you have not had a wind mitigation inspection performed, please check this Web site to find a reputable inspector in your area: http://www.ashi.org/find/default.aspx. (If your home was built in 2002 or later, you automatically receive the credits from your insurance carrier.) We also keep a list of inspectors on file so feel free to contact us directly for a referral at 866.786.4613.

We support this program and hope that our Insurance Commissioner, Kevin McCarty, will find a solution to eliminate the fraud. It would be a shame to see a few bad apples ruin it for the rest of us.

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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

Important coverage requirements for condo owners

The Florida Association of Realtors reported a 77% increase in condo sales in Florida during September. Here in Orlando, sales were nearly four times higher than the same month a year ago!

If you are a new condo owner, it's important to note that Florida law requires you to show annual proof of insurance to cover not only typical hazards but also at least $2,000 in "special assessment coverage." Your condo insurance policy must also list the association as an additional named insured.

Should you fail to show proof of insurance each year, your association may purchase the coverage on your behalf and charge you a special assessment for the cost.

Even if you rent the unit out, it is still your responsibility to comply and purchase a policy that meets these requirements.

For more information on how to get the proper insurance coverage for your condo, please visit us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com or call us at 866.786.4613. We can also be reached via e-mail at info@suninsuranceservices.com.


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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

How much insurance do I need for my home?

The Coverage A amount listed on your policy should be the amount it would take to rebuild your home if it were destroyed. Obviously, this differs from the market value of your property because that figure includes the land your property occupies.

Since property values have begun to decline, consumers may feel their property is over-insured, but the costs to rebuild are independent of current market values. Especially if your home were destroyed in a hurricane, the demand for building materials, labor, transportation, etc., would drive up the cost of rebuilding.

If you feel the Coverage A amount on your home insurance policy is too high or too low, we are happy to run a Replacement Cost Estimator to check. It takes only about 10 minutes. Please call us at 866.786.4613 or e-mail us at info@suninsuranceservices.com if you would like to review your coverage.


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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

ASI to give out 9-volt batteries

For our clients who have their home insurance with American Strategic, be on the look out for a delivery of 9-volt batteries!

This month ASI will launch their 11th Annual Battery Campaign. The goal of their initiative is to remind insureds that functioning smoke detectors are critical for alerting and preventing injury or death if their home were to catch on fire. The campaign theme is simple; they can replace your home but they cannot replace a life. They feel so strongly about this safety measure that each year they mail two 9-volt batteries to their policyholders with a reminder to replace the batteries in their smoke detectors.

Over the next several weeks, each homeowner will receive an envelope with the batteries along with a copy of Fire Safety Tips.

ASI's CEO, John Auer, started this project the first year of ASI's existence, and they have continued the tradition ever since. As of this year, they have sent out more than 2.5 million batteries to their policyholders. This year alone, they will send more than 440,000 batteries out to clients.

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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

Afternoon showers bring flood waters

Floods do more damage in Florida than in any other state, and homeowners insurance policies never cover flood damage. Fortunately, everyone in Florida is eligible to buy flood insurance from the federal government.

Development can change the land’s natural ability to absorb rain and alter rainwater runoff patterns, dramatically increasing the chances of flooding in areas that have never flooded before.
And although many floods are caused by huge storms, more result from small, localized events, such as ordinary thunderstorms. Most rainfall from hurricanes is usually produced by slow moving tropical storms that stall over an area, like last year’s Tropical Storm Fay. As hurricanes weaken and move inland, the threat of torrential rains and high winds over large areas intensifies the risk of flooding.

No matter where you live, it is important to remember that just a few inches of water in a home can cause thousands of dollars of damage, but you don’t have to spend a lot of money for flood protection.

The annual cost for a flood policy with $250,000 coverage on the building (the maximum coverage available) is only $348 per year. This means for less than a dollar per day you can add on this valuable coverage.

You can purchase a policy over the phone with a credit card, but remember, unless you are closing a new loan, there is a 30-day wait. Call us at 866.786.4613 for more info.

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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

Combine your home & auto insurance with the new AAA product

We are proud to be one of the few Florida insurance agencies to offer a new AAA insurance policy that provides protection for both your home and automobiles. Available exclusively from AAA Insurance, this new policy takes the coverage of your homeowners policy and your auto policy and combines then into a single policy offering some distinct advantages:

• Convenience of a single policy, one renewal date, and one point of contact
• Affordable protection from a secure, reliable company
• Available only in Florida and designed to meet the unique needs of Floridians
• Discounts for AAA members
• Unique policy features, such as available coverage for high-value personal property, available coverage for identity fraud and a deductible rebate for not-at-fault accidents
• 24/7/365 Claims Service- AAA claims service is just a toll-free call away

You can also purchase AAA memberships through our agency. For more information about this new product, please contact us at (866) 786-4613 or info@suninsuranceservices.com.

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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at http://www.suninsuranceservices.com/.

How to research a new insurance company

State Farm's announcement that they are leaving the Florida home insurance market has, understandably, generated widespread confusion among its customers. One piece of advice that's regularly given out to people shopping for new insurance is to check the rating of insurance companies with A.M. Best to determine their financial stability. But in Florida, as with many things, the rules about ratings are a bit different.

Very few national insurance carriers write homeowners insurance in Florida any longer, and those that do have formed "Florida-only" subsidiaries to transact the business. A.M. Best favor carriers who are regionally or nationally diversified, and their ratings for Florida-only carriers tend to be lower.

We recommend our customers look at the ratings of Demotech, which primarily measures a company’s ability to remain solvent and pay claims in a crisis, which is what most Floridians are concerned with.

"In 2004, four hurricanes and one tropical storm struck Florida," Demotech president Joseph Petrelli said. "There were nearly 100 newer, regional insurers and only one failed. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation and Demotech are doing a fine job."

The best advice we can give State Farm customers is to find an independent agency, like Sun Insurance, who represents multiple home and auto carriers and can shop for coverage on their behalf. We carefully choose a product and carrier based on our customer's needs and should those needs change, we have plenty of other options to offer them. If a carrier leaves Florida, or develops financial problems, raises rates drastically, or falls down in providing good service, we can easily re-write the policy with another carrier.

It's important to check the rating of any insurance carrier you do business with but maybe even more important to find an agent you can trust.

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Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

I can't sell my house for as much as I could last year. Can I insure if for less, too?

Housing values have plummeted throughout Florida and we’ve heard from many of you at renewal time wondering why your premium hasn’t decreased, too. It’s easy to think that lower home values equate to lower homeowners coverage but consider what your insurance policy is designed to do.

Insurance should "make you whole" again if your home were damaged or destroyed by something like a fire, lightning strike or windstorm. In the case of rebuilding a home, "making whole" means rebuilding your home back to the way it was before the loss and the cost to do this is the determining factor for your insurance policy. How much does it cost to re-build your home?

The re-build value of your home includes cost of materials, labor, debris removal and fuel while re-sale value factors in the price of your land, as well as the structure. To get a rough estimate of the re-build value of your home, multiply your square footage by $125. This is the minimum coverage you should carry on your home and will be shown as Coverage A on your policy.

If you feel that your home is over- or under-insured, please contact us by phone at 866.786.4613 or e-mail at info@suninsuranceservices.com so we can determine the correct Coverage A amount based on your specific home features.


--Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.

Five Reasons Why You Should Replace Your State Farm Policy Now

While the idea of switching insurance carriers may seem daunting, Floridians have more options than they realize. Here are 5 reasons why you should replace your State Farm policy today!

1. Beat the Rush
State Farm plans to nonrenew an average of 29,000 policies per month in Florida over the next two years. If you wait for your nonrenewal letter to start shopping, you and 28,999 other people will be looking for a new policy at the exact same time. Insurance carriers typically limit how many homes they'll insure in one area and stop offering policies in certain zip codes when they reach capacity. Give yourself the advantage of shopping now and you'll have more to choose from.

2. Your State Farm premium may increase soon.
In December State Farm premiums for Florida policyholders are expected to increase by an average of 28% when they begin eliminating certain credits from their policies, like multi-policy discounts. Just last week we spoke to two clients who received their State Farm renewal policies and were shocked to see how much their premium went up. One increased by $400 and the other by $1500!

3. There is no penalty.
There is no penalty for canceling a homeowner insurance policy in Florida. When we write the replacement policy, we will send a cancellation form to your State Farm agent and a refund will be issued for any time that had been left on the policy.

4. You don't want a Citizens policy.
The only alternative a State Farm agent in Florida can offer you as a replacement for your State Farm homeowner policy is Citizens Property Insurance. Citizens has made it well known that they are underfunded and their policies don't provide you with same coverage as a policy through a private insurance carrier. You should not move your State Farm policy over to Citizens unless you truly have no other options.

5. We'll make it easy for you.
At Sun Insurance Services we sell policies for more than a dozen private carriers. We will quote your home with as many carriers as possible to make sure you are getting the most coverage for your premium.

In speaking with clients we know that many State Farm customers had both their auto & home insurance with State Farm. While most carriers in Florida don't write both auto & home (and can't offer the multi-policy discount) we are pleased to say that there is one option for combining policies and we are one of the few agencies that offer it. AAA Insurance recently began offering a product that combines your home and auto coverage in one policy! If you are interested in the AAA product, please feel free to call or e-mail us. You can also get instant auto quotes on our Web site if you're shopping around for comparison quotes.


--Sun Insurance Services, Inc. is a family-owned and operated insurance agency located in Orlando, Florida. We write with twenty of Florida's most prestigious insurance carriers and offer our clients a broad range of choice and customization for their insurance needs. Find us on the Web at www.suninsuranceservices.com.