Taylor County took three hurricane landfalls in four seasons. Idalia came ashore at Keaton Beach in August 2023 as a Category 3, Debby at Steinhatchee in August 2024, and Helene in the Big Bend near Perry in September 2024 as a Category 4 with a 12 to 16 foot surge. Hermine had crossed nearby at St. Marks in 2016. Perry itself sits about 20 miles inland, so the town took the wind while the coast took the water, and the claims that follow raise the hardest question in Florida property insurance: which storm, and which peril, owes for the damage?
What Perry claims turn on
Three landfalls in four seasons means many homes here hold overlapping damage, and carriers use that. Adjusters split one wrecked roof between two storms, two claims and two hurricane deductibles, and a repair that was underway when the next storm arrived becomes a prior-damage denial. Wind is covered, behind a hurricane deductible calculated as a percentage of the home’s insured value, not of the loss.
On the coast the split is starker. Surge is flood, excluded from every homeowners policy and covered only by NFIP or private flood. Idalia was the strongest Big Bend hurricane in over a century and still produced only about $310 million in insured losses, because so much of the region carried no insurance at all. Across Helene and Milton, 42 percent of residential claims closed without payment, most of them flood losses with no flood policy behind them.
The law here
Florida gives you one year from the date of loss to give notice of a hurricane claim and 18 months for a supplemental claim (§ 627.70132, as amended by SB 2-A in 2023). The carrier must pay or deny within 60 days of a complete proof of loss (§ 627.70131). Those notice windows have generally closed on Idalia, Debby and Helene, but a claim you already filed that was denied or underpaid can still have options, and the deadline to sue on a filed claim is longer than the deadline to give notice. These are general figures. Confirm the current statutes and your own dates before relying on them. Not legal advice; consult an attorney about your specific claim.
