In today’s housing market, it’s not unusual to have a home worth $1 million or more, and with that often comes insurance policies that have large windstorm deductibles—sometimes as high as $100,000. To help homeowners manage this, a company called Mission, based in Alpharetta, Georgia, has introduced a new program this month. The program, named ShelterWind, is designed to lower the financial impact of these big deductibles by offering a hail and all-wind deductible buyback plan targeted at middle- and high-end homeowners.
ShelterWind is available across all 50 states but is especially useful for coastal regions that are more at risk from windstorms. The program covers homes valued up to $50 million and is supported by Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s of London. While deductible buybacks have been around for years, Mission aims to make this option more affordable and accessible than simply lowering the deductible amount on a homeowner’s insurance policy. This is important because many insurance companies in coastal areas now require deductibles that are at least 5% of the home’s value, which can be quite steep.
The company shared an example to show how the program works: if a home has a $100,000 wind deductible, the buyback plan can reduce that to $20,000. For roughly $1,800 a year, this could offer peace of mind. However, keeping that coverage long-term may be costly compared to just accepting the deductible. Florida insurance leaders say they haven’t seen many agents offering this buyback yet, and note that there are some parametric insurance options that may offer similar protections.
Jim Dwane leads Mission as its CEO, while Simon Hudson serves as CEO for ShelterWind. This new program offers an extra way for homeowners in high-risk areas to protect themselves from costly wind damage without facing massive upfront deductibles.