TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. — Condo owners in the Tampa Bay area may be facing a double whammy in the coming months between homeowners insurance and inspection costs.
The rate increases come as private homeowners insurance companies have failed or moved out of state. Taxpayer-backed Citizens Property Insurance has also announced plans to shed thousands of policies.
At the same time, the ABC Action News I-Team has learned that a new law passed after the Surfside condo collapse could create a double-whammy for thousands of Tampa Bay condo owners.
Dan Severson previously worked as a health and safety officer at a nuclear power plant. But in his retirement, he’s looking out for the welfare of 96 condo owners as President of the Ninth Fairway at Green Dolphin Condominium Association. It's one of 27,000 condo associations in Florida.
“The maintenance guy and I walk through this building every week,” Severson said.
The units were built between 1982 and 1985 and are in Tarpon Springs, about two miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
“They’re all concrete slabs. And they’re all metal stud construction,” he said.
Insurance quotes came in 13 times higher than in 2019
“Our last property insurance policy was 50 pages long. It is so full of exclusions and high deductibles that it’s almost like no insurance at all,” Severson said.
This year, quotes came in as high as $600,000, which is 13 times the amount the association paid in 2019.
“It could quadruple the cost of living in this condo. And that would be devastating to a lot of fixed-income senior people,” he said.
And there’s another big concern from a law that passed after the Champlain Towers condo collapsed in Surfside, FL, in 2021, killing 98 people.
“I know that they are going to have engineers looking at this to try to identify what happened,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the scene during a press briefing the day after the collapse.
Inspections and reserve funds mandated by the new law
An investigation revealed concrete columns, and the pool deck weren’t constructed properly and didn’t meet building codes. Documents also showed the Champlain Towers condo board was warned about problems but put off recommended repairs.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, who represents Surfside, introduced a bill calling for statewide condo inspections.
“There are 4.5 million condos in Florida. And we need to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Pizzo said when proposing the legislation.
The law, passed in a special session last year, requires condo buildings three stories or higher to have structural inspections 30 years after construction and once every 10 years after.
If the building is near a coastline, inspections start at 25 years.
“They’re going about it wrong”
But Severson worries the law will force condo boards to put millions of dollars in reserve.
Structural integrity studies must be completed by the end of 2024, and reserve accounts must be funded for future major repairs, including the replacement of the roof, load-bearing walls, and foundation.
“Nobody wants a Surfside to happen again. Nobody wants unsafe buildings. But they’re going about it wrong,” Severson said.
Seversen worries a worst-case scenario could force his association to raise monthly dues from $500 a month to $3,000, forcing some residents to move. That increase in dues would also make units in the complex nearly impossible to sell.
“That’s almost twice what the average person collects in Social Security,” Severson said.
Severson was able to negotiate a policy for $98,000 from Citizens Property Insurance, but only after paying $262,000 to replace a roof on a building that was installed in 2016. Severson said his association is proposing a nearly $3,000 assessment this year to cover those insurance increases and the repairs.
He worries the association’s financial picture could be much worse next year.
“I’ve asked the lawyer what would happen if we just refused to comply. And she said, well, you could go to jail,” Severson said.
If you have a story you think the I-Team should investigate, contact us at adam@abcactionnews.com