ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — When it comes to protecting your property against sinkholes, insurance might be the first option that comes to mind. But if you live in a sinkhole-prone area such as Pasco County, sinkhole insurance might be hard to come by.
According to Chris Coleman, who owns Coleman Insurance Agency, the vast majority of applications for sinkhole insurance in Pasco County get denied by insurance companies. The reason: fraud.
“One of the reasons why the sinkhole is so hard to get or that cancel people is because there was so much fraud going on. Public adjusters would go door-to-door just knocking on people’s houses and saying, ‘hey, someone up the road just got a $300,000 check, I can get you one too’,” explained Coleman. “Five, six years ago, if you go down U.S. 19 in Pasco County every other billboard was a sinkhole mediation lawyer. Now, since they changed the law, you don’t really see many of them anymore.”
These days, if someone in Pasco County wants a sinkhole policy, an insurance provider will send an inspector out to look at the property. If they find any cracks in the driveway or the walls – sinkhole-related or not – they’ll most likely deny the policy.
“Most of the insurance companies say that they offer sinkhole but they’ll have to come out and test for it,” added Coleman. “They will come out a look, any cracks in the driveway, any cracks in the drywall, then they decline it. So, most of them say that they offer sinkhole but it’s almost impossible to get it.”
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