When a Florida homeowner decides to walk away from property insurance after premiums blow past $14,000, it is not a quirky one-off. It is a sign that the ground rules of owning a house in the state are shifting under people’s feet. The choice to go without coverage, once unthinkable for most families, is turning into a calculated risk that more Floridians are willing to take as bills climb faster than paychecks.
The story playing out in Tampa and across the peninsula is bigger than one policy renewal gone bad. Years of rising rates, insurer exits, and storm losses have pushed the market to a breaking point, and now a growing share of homeowners are deciding that “going bare” is the lesser of two bad options. I see that decision as a hard, personal line in the sand, and it tells us a lot about where Florida’s insurance crisis really stands.
The Tampa homeowner who finally said “enough”
The Tampa homeowner who dropped coverage after premiums topped $14,000 did what many of us swear we would never do: he chose to shoulder the full risk of his house rather than keep feeding an insurance bill that felt like a second mortgage. His decision came after years of steady increases, then a sudden spike that pushed his annual cost into five figures, a pattern that has become familiar across Tampa and the rest of Florida. When a renewal notice jumps that high, it stops being a budgeting problem and starts feeling like a survival problem.
He is not alone. Local agents and consumer advocates say more clients are asking what happens if they cancel, how their mortgage lender will react, and whether they can set aside their own emergency fund instead of paying a company they no longer trust. The Tampa homeowner’s move to go uninsured, or “go bare,” reflects a broader frustration with a system that seems to punish people for staying put in older neighborhoods or coastal communities. When a single bill crosses $14,000, it crystallizes a question many Floridians are now asking themselves: is traditional coverage still worth it in a state where the rules keep changing?
A growing trend of “going bare” across Central Florida
What happened in Tampa fits into a wider pattern that has been building across Central Florida. Reporters have documented how homeowners from Orlando to the Space Coast are joining a rising trend of opting out of property insurance altogether, even as they stay in the same houses they have lived in for years. One detailed account followed residents who watched premiums from private insurers climb as much as 400 percent, a shock that pushed some to cancel policies and rely on savings or faith instead of a contract. In that reporting, Lillian Hern, Caraballo, all appear as part of a portrait of people trying to hang on to homes and memories while the math stops working…