Short-term Rental Insurance in Florida

A rental property policy needs to address specific issues

Florida is a popular destination for vacation home renters. A standard homeowners insurance policy only covers owner-occupied properties. It does not cover a home that is rented out to guests. Many insurance companies will not even knowingly provide a policy for short term rental insurance in Florida. We work with some of the top companies who do.

Here are some questions to ask when considering a policy for your rental:

You need a policy for your vacation home rental property that specifically addresses these questions. For over 15 years we have insured thousands of short-term rental properties in Florida. Fudge Insurance is well-versed in the unique risks of vacation home rentals. With clients in over 75 countries, we help absentee owners protect their short-term rental homes in Florida with coverage that fits their needs. Whether your rental property is in Daytona or Anna Maria Island, Long Boat Key or Miami, Naples or Jacksonville, let us make your short-term rental insurance shopping a breeze. (Keeping a second home for yourself rather than renting it? See vacation home insurance in Florida.)

What changed in Florida’s short-term rental insurance market after 2023?

Florida’s property market went through a hard reset: a wave of carrier insolvencies and withdrawals through 2022 and 2023, litigation reform at the end of 2022, and a slow rebuild since, with new and returning carriers picking their spots carefully. That is still the shape of the market as we write this in 2026. For rental owners it lands three ways. The carrier that wrote your policy three years ago may no longer exist, or may no longer want rental risk, so continuity now takes active management. More short-term rental business is written in the excess and surplus lines market, where coverage terms vary far more between carriers than admitted policies do, so reading the form matters. And appetite is granular: a carrier eager for a new-construction Panhandle beach house may decline a 1970s Keys apartment building outright. An independent agency that quotes the whole STR market is how you find the carrier whose appetite matches your property this year, not three years ago.

How do wind and named-storm deductibles work on a Florida rental?

Nearly every Florida policy carries a separate hurricane or named-storm deductible, stated as a percentage of your dwelling limit rather than a flat dollar figure. Common percentages are 2%, 5% and 10%. On a $600,000 rental, a 5% hurricane deductible means $30,000 out of pocket before coverage responds, and while you fund it the booking calendar is dark, which is why loss-of-rents coverage and the deductible percentage should be decided together. When quotes look surprisingly cheap, the wind deductible is the first place to look. The mechanics, with a worked example, are on our short-term rental insurance guide. And remember wind is not flood; rising water is a separate policy entirely (see flood insurance).

Insuring short-term rentals in the Florida Keys

The Keys are their own insurance market: Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Key West. Every property is coastal, wind exposure is as high as it gets in the state, much of the building stock is older, and a big share of rentals are condos and apartment units rather than single-family homes. That changes the policy form. A unit owner generally needs an HO-6-style rental policy that meshes with the association’s master policy instead of a dwelling policy, and flood coverage belongs on every Keys quote. Fewer carriers play here, but they exist, and we place Keys rentals from Key Largo apartments to Islamorada condos to Key West cottages. This is the hard-to-place work an STR specialist exists for.

The Panhandle and 30A

The Emerald Coast runs on a different rental economy than the peninsula: Destin, Miramar Beach, Santa Rosa Beach, and the 30A beach towns from Grayton Beach through Seaside, Seagrove, Watercolor, Seacrest, Alys and Rosemary Beach. High-value newer construction, professional management, premium weekly rates. Newer building codes work in your favor on premium, but dwelling limits are large, so the wind-deductible percentage carries serious dollars, and losing a peak summer week costs more here than almost anywhere in Florida. Size the loss-of-rents limit to the calendar you actually book, not a guess. We insure short-term rentals across the Panhandle, from Pensacola Beach and Navarre through Fort Walton Beach, Niceville and Inlet Beach to Panama City Beach.

How much does short-term rental insurance cost in Florida?

There is no honest single number. Florida STR premiums move with location (coastal proximity above all), construction type and year, dwelling limit, the wind deductible you choose, claims history, and how the home is rented. What we can say: a Florida short-term rental generally costs more to insure than an equivalent primary home, coastal wind exposure is the biggest single driver, and quotes for the same house differ widely between carriers, which is the argument for shopping the whole market rather than one brand. For your property, the answer that means anything is a quote against your details; if you already carry a policy, ask us for a coverage review to see whether it still fits how you rent.

How do I choose the best short-term rental insurance company in Florida?

The best carrier is the one whose appetite fits your property, and in post-2023 Florida that varies house by house. Compare on four things, premium last: whether the form covers rental activity explicitly (silence is not coverage); the wind deductible percentage and what it means in dollars on your limit; whether loss of rental income is included and at what limit; and how the carrier has handled Florida storm claims in practice. An independent agency puts the whole field side by side. We have placed Florida vacation rentals since 1999, and the carriers we use for a Keys condo, a 30A beach house and an Orlando villa are rarely the same one.

If you have a vacation home rental property near any of the following cities, contact us today! *

* Please note, we cover all of Florida