Clearwater storm & claim resource

Clearwater is a study in contrasts: barrier islands that meet the Gulf at ground level, and a downtown that sits on one of the highest bluffs on Florida’s west coast. Helene drove a record Gulf surge across Clearwater Beach and Sand Key in September 2024, then Milton came ashore just south two weeks later. Homes on the beach flooded while the bluff stayed dry, and the resulting claims raise the hardest question in Florida property insurance: which storm, and which peril, owes for the damage?

What Clearwater claims turn on

Surge is flood, and flood is excluded from every homeowners policy — it needs NFIP or private flood coverage. Wind is covered, behind a hurricane deductible that is a percentage of the home’s insured value, not the loss. On the barrier islands a home often takes both surge below and wind above, and the flood carrier and the wind carrier each point at the other. On the same-property Helene-then-Milton claims, insurers also argued over which storm caused what — an allocation fight that closed a large share of those claims without payment.

The law here

Florida gives you one year from the date of loss to give notice of a hurricane claim and 18 months for a supplemental claim (§ 627.70132, as amended by SB 2-A in 2023), and the carrier must pay or deny within 60 days of a complete proof of loss (§ 627.70131). For storms that are already years past, those notice windows have generally closed — but a claim you already filed that was denied or underpaid can still have options, and the deadline to sue on a filed claim is longer. These are general figures — confirm the current statutes and your own dates with counsel before relying on them.