Home insurers in Florida have denied tens of thousands of claims made by property owners over damages caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, according to data compiled by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FLOIR).
As of Friday, 19,068 residential claims made over Hurricane Helene were closed without payment out of a total of 57,415. As of Monday, 27,834 of residential claims linked to damages caused by Hurricane Milton were closed without payment, out of a total of 202,989. In both cases, the number of denied claims outweighed the number of claims closed with payment.
While FLOIR doesn’t include an explanation of why these claims were denied, it’s likely that these claims were not meeting the deductible—the amount policyholders are expected to pay before the insurance plan starts to pay—or they weren’t covered by the homeowner’s insurance policy. Another possibility is that policyholders making the claims could not be reached by the insurance company.