Marco Island storm & claim resource

Marco Island took a direct hit when Irma came ashore here on September 10, 2017, driving hurricane-force wind across a barrier island where almost every address sits in a VE or AE flood zone. Wilma had crossed nearby Collier in 2005, and Ian’s 2022 surge pushed up the island’s canal network from a landfall to the north. On a low island ringed by Gulf beaches and gulf-access canals, wind and water arrive together — and the claim turns on which peril, and which storm, owes for the damage.

What Marco Island 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 a barrier island, nearly every canal and beachfront home faces both perils at once, so the wind carrier and the flood carrier each point at the other. Marco’s condo towers add the split between the unit owner’s policy and the association’s master policy — a common source of underpayment when neither carrier accepts the full scope.

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.