Key West storm & claim resource

Key West has taken more direct hurricane strikes than almost anywhere in Florida. The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, the most intense on record at U.S. landfall, devastated the Upper Keys; Betsy raked the island chain in 1965; Georges made landfall near Key West in 1998; Wilma pushed a record surge across the low island in 2005; and Irma came ashore at Cudjoe Key in 2017. On a coral island barely above sea level, the resulting claims raise the hardest question in Florida property insurance: which storm, and which peril, owes for the damage?

What Key West 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. Almost the entire island sits in an AE flood zone, so surge and wind hit the same homes together, and the wind carrier and the flood carrier each point at the other. Key West’s older wood-frame houses and its many condo conversions add further disputes over code-required repairs and over where the unit-owner policy ends and the association master policy begins.

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.