The other end of the household.

Locked out of the state backstop, and exposed to flood and wind besides.

Florida is the hardest coastal home market in the country, and high value makes it harder, not easier. Citizens (the state-backed insurer of last resort) will not write a home whose replacement cost runs above roughly $700,000 (the cap is $1 million in Miami-Dade and Monroe), so a true oceanfront Palm Beach or Manalapan house is locked out of the state backstop by statute and belongs with the specialty and high-net-worth insurers, and the excess-and-surplus market from the start. The admitted market went through a genuine dislocation after the 2022 storm season; reforms since 2023 have steadied it (Citizens is shrinking again and rate increases have moderated), but it remains a market that rewards an independent agency working several carriers over a single company's appetite.

Then there is the coast itself. The federal flood program caps building coverage at $250,000, a fraction of these dwelling values, so flood goes private and excess: sized to the real cost and layered to the tens of millions with the high-value carriers. Named-storm wind carries its own percentage deductible, set against elevation and distance to the water. And many of these are second homes, empty for stretches, which changes how water, wind, and theft are underwritten. The cross-state piece ties it together: one personal umbrella stacked over the New York estate and the Palm Beach home, placed as a single file rather than two carriers quoting blind.