Insurance Rates weigh on housing budgets

The Florida Sun-Sentinal reports:

Software developer Michael Gordon owns a five-bedroom house in Coral Springs. It's certainly big enough for his family of four, but he was hoping to move into more luxurious digs in Parkland.

That was before he learned that he'd have to pay at least double -- about $7,000 a year -- to insure the new house. Already incensed over his insurance bill in Coral Springs, Gordon, 45, decided to stay where he is.

"When I drive through the neighborhood that my wife and I considered buying into," he said by e-mail, "I constantly ask, `How do these people do it?'"

Insurance rates have joined home prices and property taxes as major deterrents to living in South Florida -- and some of the state's largest insurers haven't even been granted the additional increases they're seeking.

The rate increases, which insurers are blaming partly on the five hurricanes to hit the region in 13 months, are causing some buyers to back off or to consider smaller homes that are less costly to insure, agents say.

What scam will the housing promoters come up with to artificially lower insurance rates?