It’s all about whether you can afford to take the hit or not. When you are younger, typically you can’t. As you get older, questions like you have raised above are valid. But remember, it’s not only a hurricane, your homeowners insurance and umbrella cover liability as well.

Insurance is one of those things you have so that you don't need it. But when you do you don't think about how much you spent, you think how lucky you are to have it.

I have a friend who doesn’t believe in insurance. Has health insurance through Medicare and no other insurance. Not my thinking. I agree with Shelley. Hopefully, you’ll never need it.

GM Gotham, the reasoning for the hurricane insurance increase is, due to climate change and natural disasters, FEMA went broke and removed their subsidies;hence we/you are paying the actual true cost of the insurance. Insurance carriers (I have zero empathy for them) have gotten hammered by claims and absorbed large losses since superstorm Sandy wiped out my childhood home. This has caused major carriers to pull out of "high risk" areas like Fla and California! I wrote an article on this and will share it.

Being a Florida resident for the past almost two years, I have grown to despise the insurance industry. Our rates have skyrocketed this year for home, car as well as flood. I totally understand the climate changes but can't understand how all that money collected was spent when most people I know never put a claim in. Have I used it, once to rebuild a roof. I likely got about $13,000 covered. When I look back at the 10 years of paying my premiums, i easily spent double or triple that. So unless you have a total loss, you likely will never recoup what you put in. As Paul said, its all about what you can afford and weather its required by a mortgage (which of course it is, so most young people are forced to pay in regardless). As I pay off my mortgages, I am leaning towards dropping it (but always have liability coverage) Especially this year where rates have risen 30-50% in my part of the world.

Although I despise insurance carriers (with good reasons!), I subscribe to their underlying theory of protection against catastrophic loss. I'm paying premiums principally for peace of mind.

How you are insured doesn't matter . . . . . . until it does.

Fred, I know it's painful. It's painful, and some times I even hate them, for me each time I get an increase in premium. I've been in some aspect of the industry for over 50 years and I believe if viewed macroscopically the industry does not make excessive profits, compared to other industries and company failures are rare. To me this is a good litmus test that in general rates are just about where they should be. Bruce is smarter than me but even I can understand that it doesn't matter till it does. 10 years ago we had an event, involving home heating oil, with our home of 40 years that caused the market value to go to zero for about 9 months till insurance brought it back to market value.

I’m insured for everything

In the 60s and 70s I used to insist that I needed "Insult Insurance" because so many people were insulting my intelligence, my clothing, my freedom of speech, my taste in music, etc that I figured I could support myself solely on the payouts.

PS When the hurricanes hit our house we didn't got dinged for full payment because we hadn't recently repainted the side door on the garage which we never used. And now my health insurance selectively doesn't cover eyes and teeth exactly when I need it.

The question is not whether you can can afford it, but, rather, can you afford not to have it? Who else will replace or restore your home? Replace your income? Pay to restore and maintain your health? My most affluent clients choose insurance as a business decision, a form of irreplaceable asset protection and peace of mind. We call this risk management. And if properly structured, there are tax leveraging strategies that, over time, can return your premiums, guarantee or offset future premiums, move a million or more in health and other premiums off the balance sheet, lower your tax table for increased retirement contributions, protect deferred comp, fund premiums with deferred comp or even retirement tax dollars, etc. Supplemental retirement funding creates a supplemental tax-free retirement income stream second to none. At the end of the day, captive insurance premium deductions and other insurance tax leveraging strategies should ideally not only return every premium dollar over time, but leave the owner with a multi-figure tax-favored surplus. Properly structured, insurance is one of the most fungible tax-advantaged assets one can own.

I question the veracity of your "friend"

We had flood insurance during Sandy even though we weren't required to. And we were so thankful that we did. So many of my friends regretted their decision then to save a few dollars (because pre-Sandy, flood insurance was extremely inexpensive) and forego the insurance. We are forever thankful that we had the insurance.