By Anna Johnson
The board and management of Las Olas Beach Club of Satellite Beach, FL, must keep our resort viable and as attractive as other options, yet we must communicate the hurdles we face as we go. We strive to ensure that the resort brings value to the families we serve for as long as possible.
Although challenging, the following priorities are fortunately not unique to timesharing. One is of concern for all Floridians and people who travel to Florida, and the others seem to be occurring all across the nation.
Insurance is top priority
The top priority for Florida is property insurance. In recent years many companies have left the state and only a handful remain to bear the risk. Reinsurance comes from foreign corporations whose rates have risen dramatically. On July 12, Farmers Insurance made the news as the latest to join the exodus, leaving 100,000 policyholders behind.
Florida coastal condominiums have seen hazard insurance increase some 300 to 500 percent since 2021. Annual condominium-unit premiums have risen thousands of dollars. Timeshare owners only bear 1/51 of this total hit for each week they own, which still can amount to a maintenance-fee increase of several hundred dollars per week owned, just for this one portion of the fee.
If you live in a Florida coastal-area condominium, you need to be aware of the insurance situation, and also the new reserve-study requirements the legislature came up with in 2022. If you own a Florida timeshare, you are affected. If you stay at a hotel or an Airbnb or VRBO in Florida, you still have an interest. When the place you own or rent has insurance go up by $1,000 a month, those operating costs will be passed along, accounted for, and recouped though increased rental rates.
What can be done?
This is an issue of governance and a call for leadership from our politicians. We keep the resort free from politics. People of like mind share their thoughts, but we do not proselytize, convert, or insult people of different persuasion; that’s for the internet, not vacation.
But, we have to get political. Florida’s governor has higher ambitions, cultivating his image as a leader, traveling everywhere campaigning upon his success. We received a solicitation for donations that was perhaps 1,000 words long, touting legislative triumphs fighting against this and not backing down from that, etc., etc., but it did not mention the insurance crisis Florida is facing. Of course not. The largest increases have come after special sessions dedicated to insurance.
In Florida law you can request to revisit an operating budget that increases 15 percent or more over the previous year. The legislature did fix that—by changing the statute to omit insurance costs from the calculation! This makes it easier to finalize a budget with huge increases due to insurance even if you have to finance the premium, raise fees, or special assess just to pay it—and that is happening at condos all over.
Per information we received from an expert in both insurance and the legislative process, we ask our owners (and you) to get involved. Phone Governor Ron DeSantis’ office at 850-717-9337. You’ll have an option to speak with someone if you have knowledge and solutions, and an option to just leave a voicemail.
Tell him he needs to lead on insurance solutions and revisit the Hurricane Catastrophe Fund so reinsurance may go down and Florida can attract companies back to Florida.
Other priorities
Staff: Another priority is finding and compensating staff. We have a great team, but finding and retaining them takes time and effort. An absence of qualified employees affects us and our contractors and vendors. We attend seminars from professionals and community agencies. The speakers are baffled by where the employees are and where they work to make rents that are up 25 percent and mortgage rates that have doubled. We offer good wages and an excellent work atmosphere, but the new normal seems to be always seeking team members. We must examine compensation increases and explain them to the owners, along with the insurance increases and this next item.
Supply costs and supply-chain issues: Costs are up on everything, and far above the publicized rates on many items. Big-ticket items must be backordered months, and important parts—whether old or new technology—may take weeks or months to obtain.
Scheduling can be tricky as shipping goals may not be met and price increases can occur during delays and shortages of materials. We may have to assemble materials and verify the correct ones arrive before even scheduling installation.
It’s gonna be ok
These issues form a convergence of financial pressures we must navigate and minimize when and where possible. The important thing is to communicate to the owners that while we are experiencing an increase in costs, just as they are in their personal and business lives, they also affect the alternatives to timesharing. We need to reassure our owners that the proper timeshare ownership for them still makes financial sense as well as quality-of-life sense.
Anna Johnson is the resort manager at Las Olas Beach Club of Satellite Beach, FL.