Sun Sentinel
Do you have a dog “known to be nervous or temperamental?” If so, Stillwater Property & Casualty can deny you one of its insurance policies.
Does your property fail to “show pride of ownership” and does it have one of those roofs “that exceeds their maximum useful life expectancy?” You and Peoples Trust might differ on what that means, but the company’s guidelines say those are not eligible for coverage.
Each insurer has its own list of what it calls ineligible risks — features of homes, characteristics of homeowners or amenities brought to a home. Companies use those to screen out applicants or to decline to renew policies.
As homeowner insurance claims keep increasing in Florida, so do risks that companies won’t cover or will cite to deny coverage altogether. Peoples Trust, for example, applied to the state April 1 to expand its list to include roofs with attached solar panels and homes with more than two dogs — though the company backed away from the dog proposal this week.