PALM HARBOR, Fla. (WFTS) — Juan Mercado thought fixing a roof leak would be simple. He noticed it the weekend Tropical Storm Debby hit the Tampa Bay area.
But he was shocked to find out he would be hit with a hurricane deductible on his insurance claim, despite the fact that Debby wasn't upgraded to a hurricane until days later, once it had made its way to the Tallahassee region.
"It might not be an injustice, but it's not just," Mercado said.
Mercado's regular deductible is a little more than $2,900. The hurricane deductible is more than $11,700.
"I tried to recreate the path, and I tried to with times and dates of when it became a hurricane and when it did that. And apparently that doesn't, that's irrelevant," he said.
Mark Friedlander, the Florida spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, said that the reason for this is a very cut-and-dry answer.
"When a hurricane watch or warning is issued in any part of the state, the entire state goes under the hurricane deductible program, which is a state regulation," Friedlander explained.
“Hurricane coverage” is coverage for loss or damage caused by windstorm during a hurricane. The term includes damage to the interior of a building or to property inside a building, caused by rain, snow, sleet, hail, sand or dust if the direct force of the windstorm first damages the building, causing an opening through which rain, snow, sleet, hail, sand or dust enters and causes damage anywhere in the state of Florida. This is also found in s. 627.4025, F.S.
All insurance companies must offer hurricane deductible options of $500, 2 percent, 5 percent, or 10 percent of the policy dwelling or structure limits, unless the specific percentage deductible is less than $500, according to the state.
The statewide hurricane deductible provision lasts 72 hours after the hurricane watch is activated.
"It's an interpretation of what the loss is, but we have to remember that land-falling hurricanes could cause damage hundreds or literally thousands of miles away from where they made landfall. So even though the hurricane say struck Key West, the outer bands of the system could cause severe rain events in all parts of Florida," he explained.
Mercado's other frustration is with how his adjuster handled the quote.
"Although I understand business, it's still not fair. They're actually taking advantage of people, and the way in which they do it is, you know, when they came in, they didn't they didn't even inspect it. They just took pictures. There was no inspection. They didn't go up in the attic. They didn't go up in the roof," Mercado said. "How are they able? And that's what I asked them when they sent me that estimate of how much it would cost and why they were not going to go with it, because it was just short of my deductible, the estimate to fix it."
Mercado is now inspecting the damage on his own.
He shared this picture with ABC Action News; where he hired an outside company to cut a hole into the ceiling and inspect the issues.
"We made a hole in the ceiling and found damage worth well over my deductible. This is unethical if not illegal," he said.
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