Florida faces a crisis of rising insurance costs in the face of increasing extreme weather. Already, major insurers have pulled out of the state and Floridians have been hit with skyrocketing home-insurance bills.
One solution, said real-estate developer Marshall Gobuty, is to build more resilient homes.
"People say they build to code, and my answer is 'Great,'" he told Business Insider. "Building over code and doing things that haven't been done — that's something to be proud of."
Enter Hunters Point. An 86-unit community in Cortez, Florida, a hour south of Tampa, created by Gobuty's company, Pearl Homes. Residents first moved into the net-zero single-family homes in 2022, and they have withstood two hurricanes so far while also producing more energy than they consume.
Recently, the carrier Hunters Point used for builders insurance said they weren't writing any new policies, but Gobuty and his team were able to find coverage by showing details of the homes' construction— like ground-floor flood vents that drain water and full-home metal strappings that tie the property together as one unit — that Gobuty believes made them change their mind.
"They're covering us because the way we built our homes," he told BI.
That's significant as major insurers have recently fled Florida over the increased risk. Since 2022, a dozen insurance companies have claimed insolvency, stopped issuing new policies, or withdrawn from the state entirely. The state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation is now the top underwriter as private companies leave.
Take a look at the ground-breaking Hunters Point development.