Seeing the headlines regarding the continuing hurricane insurance crises is just further proof of what a total mess hurricane insurance remains in the sunny state of Florida. The Sept. 3 story, "Citizens switch brings huge rate increase," struck a chord since I am in the same boat.

Living east of Interstate 95 (just barely) meant that until this year my wind insurance was covered by Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the so-called state insurer of last resort. Last year we paid $1,247 for wind insurance with Citizens. This included a mitigation credit for a recent inspection that we had done on our roof.

Earlier this year, we were surprised to find that we had been picked up by a private insurer. At first we figured that perhaps a private insurer was selectively choosing only certain policies and that ours fit the bill since we had never made a claim and had had a favorable roof assessment. Could our rate be slightly more favorable than if we remained with Citizens? Guess again, we were stunned to received this year's bill of $3,073 for wind insurance. Thank heaven for our mitigation credit, otherwise this bill would have been an even bigger whopper to the tune of $4,800.

What's especially annoying is that our neighbor with basically the same house and similar coverage is still with Citizens and is only paying $1,200 for his wind insurance. Talk about unfair. Is this really America or one of those strange countries where you have to be a party member to get the special deals?

In addition, since our previous homeowner's insurer left the state, we were picked up by another insurer with an increase resulting in us now paying $841 for homeowner's insurance. Throwing in flood insurance and property taxes, if this keeps up, we're going to have to consider leaving Florida for another state, preferably one where people pay the same amount for the same thing.

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