If I ever build another home in Florida, it will be built using the Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) method of poured concrete walls, storm resistant windows, and a metal roof and I would think long and hard about being self-insured.
I remember being on Tortola and they were building a house nearby. It was up the hill 30 feet over the beach. They poured a slab with lots of rebar. Cinder block walls. Another floor of poured concrete with more rebar. More cinder block walls. Lastly a roof framed out of pressure treated pine lumber. The roof tiles were about 5/8” thick concrete. They said that they were rated up to 165 mph. The windows had galvanized steel hurricane shutters. They stuccoed the outside of the cinder blocks. The floors were all tile. If it got wet, you just squeegee it out and replace the furniture.
Why don't they build houses in Florida like this?
The winter homes built in West Central FL, near the coast in the ‘50s and earlier are all single story concrete block. That’s why they’re still around while the speculator stick houses are long gone.
We shouldn’t have to subsidize shyster developer housing scams -3 story McMansions “On the Beach” -which payout millions in insurance when totaled in the first Cat 5.