"Florida evacuees face anxiety over home insurance coverage"

With me now is Glenn and Amber Schwarm. They live in St. Pete's, but they have followed the mandatory evacuation orders and they got out. They're now in Orlando, which was also hit with a lot of rain, but we'll get to that in a second. Good morning to the both of you. How are you guys doing? And what are you hearing about what's happening back home? Telling a little bit of a self-relief. You know, we look like the flooding did not get out at all. Like the opposite happened with the Bay and the ocean. So this is what we're hearing. You know, we might go there and find something entirely different. We're not sure about wind damage at this point. Yeah, there's still 100 mile an hour plus winds that hit our neighborhood. So there was a lot of debris. It was all over the road from the previous hurricane just two weeks ago. So, you know, we're not sure what we're gonna be bumping into. Right now, we're not allowed back in our county yet. So we're not allowed back in yet. We live in a barrier island. We can't go back on there. Though it has passed, we can't get back home to assess the damage yet. But so far, it seems like the floodwater did not hit us. Sadly, it went south. It was good for us. It was bad for people down south, but that's what we're dealing with today. Okay, okay. Amber, how would you describe your level of anxiety right now as you wait to get the word that you can go back home? It's a little less than it was yesterday. I think I'm just kind of glad this is over. But it's still there, you know? We've had to evacuate for hurricanes before, but it's mostly, you know, just for a safety reason. We've never evacuated, like, not knowing if we're gonna have a home to go back to. That was a different level of anxiety. That was scary. And, you know, besides going through a divorce previously and our son being born three months early, I think this is the most stress I've felt in a very, very long time. It's overwhelming. And we try to practice what we preach about being positive and, you know, not worrying until you have to worry. But it took a lot of self-talk to talk myself off the ledge sometimes. A lot. Aw. Now, Glenn, we hear so many stories, horror stories, really, here in Canada about insurance rates in Florida. People can't get insurance. They can't afford insurance. Are you guys okay? Are we okay? So insurance doubled last year. To give you a frame of reference, our insurance for our property was, we first moved here, $8,000. The next year, they canceled us, and then we got another carrier to give it to us for $15,000. That's just for hurricane. That's not for flood. And then they canceled us for no reason. And the next quote we got was, ready for this? $90,000 for a policy. I'm not kidding. I got two more quotes in the $80,000 range, one in the $50,000, and then finally one in the $30,000, and I couldn't afford it. So finally, we found a company, thank God, on late night TV. Shockingly, but they're a great company that helped us get insurance for, now we're down to $11,000, which still sounds crazy, but it's so cheap for here. But we're reluctant to use it for anything because I feel, I'm terrified if I go back and I have damage to our home and we use the insurance. They're gonna cancel us. And then we're right back in the same boat. So it feels like you have a policy, but you're a prisoner. You can't use it. It's a little, the insurance is terrifying here. And FEMA, or not FEMA, but flood insurance, I think it's FEMA too, however, that's tied together, only covers you for $250,000. So if you have a total loss with your house is flooding, down here with a great construction rate, you're done. You're toast. Our next door neighbor, they have a ground level house that was completely flooded during Halloween two weeks ago, but they had no insurance. They just self-insured. Yes, they're a total loss. Wow, my jaw's been on the ground while you were just describing that rollercoaster of numbers you've had to go through. So let me then conclude by asking, do you ever have second thoughts? I mean, we hear so many people are saying now it is not worth it, yet at the same time, and I'm sure you guys both know this, hundreds of people are moving to Florida every day. Yeah, we have had conversations recently, just in the past two weeks, wow, Amber always said, I wanna live where everybody else vacations. It was our dream to move to the beach, and it was a dream until it wasn't two weeks ago, and then it's still a dream, but yeah, go ahead. Yeah, here's my thing. I wouldn't mind having a house that's a little higher up so that we didn't have our moment of flooding, because our house is about 11 feet off. It's about a 30-year-old house, which was building code back then, but it's- Our newer houses are about 18 feet off of elevation. I would feel more comfortable with that. The last flood came within five inches of coming into our living space. This was two weeks ago. We lost all our cars. And we were home during that. We lost all of our cars. We were home during that. I just wanna say to your viewers real quick, just to say Glenn and Amber Schwarm on Facebook, we've documented all this journey, like all the videos and all the flooding and stuff, so it's been crazy. They wanna follow and see it, but it's been like, do we love it? The minute the nice weather starts again and we rebuild again, hopefully we just are stronger next time, and it's expensive to move, too, so we're locked into a very low interest rate, under 3%, so we don't wanna move. I've never been in such a wonderful community where the neighbors help each other, and everybody's- We have multiple group chats with our neighbors going on, and as far as the community of Floridians and the kind of people that they are, we're pretty hearty people. Yeah, we heard from our local mayor this morning. He reached out to us and said, look, I know him from going to the gym with him, and he said, look, I wouldn't come back yet. It's gonna be several days before they get sewer turned back on, water and power turned back on, so we're gonna hunker down here in Disney and try and make the best of it for a few days. Make the best of it. Well, you guys have awesome attitudes. We wish you all the best. We appreciate you sharing your story with us today, and please be safe. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.