Fort Myers storm & claim resource

Hurricane Ian made landfall on the Lee County coast on September 28, 2022, and drove a catastrophic surge up the Caloosahatchee and across San Carlos Bay into Fort Myers and Fort Myers Beach. Charley had raked the same corridor from Charlotte Harbor in 2004, and Donna hit the city hard in 1960. When a home floods and is wind-damaged in the same storm, Fort Myers claims raise the hardest question in Florida property insurance: which peril, and which storm, owes for the damage?

What Fort Myers 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. Along the river and toward the bay, a home is often hit by both perils, so the wind carrier and the flood carrier each point at the other. Ian claims added a scope fight: whether interior and structural damage came from wind-driven rain and roof failure (covered) or from rising surge water (flood) — an allocation that decided how much, if anything, the homeowners carrier paid.

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.