Hurricane prep for Florida rental properties.
Hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, and late August through October is the busy stretch. Here's the checklist we'd want every Jacksonville rental owner to have done before a storm gets a name.
Wind gets the headlines. Water does the damage.
Jacksonville sits far enough inland that direct major-hurricane landfalls are rarer here than in South Florida — but the St. Johns River runs straight through the city, and storm surge pushed up the river is our signature problem. Hurricane Irma in 2017 flooded riverfront neighborhoods without making landfall anywhere near us. For a rental owner, that means two separate exposures: wind damage to roofs, fences, and trees, and water intrusion from surge, river flooding, and wind-driven rain. They're covered by different insurance policies, which is where preparation starts.
The insurance file, before the forecast.
None of this can be fixed once a storm is inside the five-day cone — insurers stop binding new coverage when a named storm approaches. Do it in the quiet weeks:
Pull your declarations page and read the deductibles
Florida policies typically carry a separate hurricane or wind deductible — often a percentage of the dwelling coverage, not a flat number. Know what that figure actually is in dollars, because it's what you'll pay before the first insurance dollar arrives.
Confirm whether you have flood coverage — separately
Standard landlord policies exclude flood. Flood is its own policy (NFIP or private), and NFIP coverage generally has a 30-day waiting period. If the property sits near the river or a creek, this is the gap that ruins owners.
Document the property's condition now
Walk the property with a phone: roof, ceilings, floors, fences, trees, appliances — dated photos and video, stored somewhere that isn't inside the property. A claim is an argument about what the property looked like before; win it in advance.
Stage the contact list
Carrier claim line and policy numbers, your agent, your property manager, and current tenant phone numbers and emails — in one place you can reach with the power out.
Tenant communication, before and during.
Most storm-season friction between owners and tenants comes from nobody having said who does what. Settle it in writing before the season gets busy:
Before a storm threatens: remind tenants that your insurance covers the building, not their belongings — renters insurance covers those. Point them to JaxReady, the City of Jacksonville's emergency preparedness resource, to look up their evacuation zone. Tell them how to report damage (for our tenants, the tenant portal, which also handles after-hours emergencies) and ask them to secure or bring in patio furniture and loose yard items if a storm approaches — flying objects are how windows break.
When a storm is named and inbound: send a short, factual note — where to report damage, what number to use for emergencies, a reminder about evacuation zones. Never instruct tenants to stay or leave; evacuation decisions belong to the tenant and local authorities. And after the storm, don't promise repair timelines you can't control. "Reported, documented, vendor scheduled" is a better message than an optimistic date.
The pre-storm property checklist.
Trees and gutters — the highest-value hour
Dead limbs and branches overhanging the roof are Jacksonville's most preventable storm damage; our tree canopy is beautiful right up until the wind starts. Clear gutters and downspouts so the rain the storm brings actually leaves the roof.
Secure everything that can fly
Patio furniture, grills, trash cans, loose fence boards. At occupied properties this is a tenant ask; at vacant units, someone has to physically go do it — vacant properties are the ones nobody thinks about until after.
Protect openings where warranted
If the property has shutters or cut panels, confirm they're on site and usable before they're needed. Taping windows does nothing — skip it.
One safety line for tenants with generators
Generators run outdoors only — never in a garage, carport, or near openings. Carbon monoxide kills more people after Florida storms than the storms do. Put that sentence in your tenant note verbatim.
Final photos
A quick dated exterior pass within a day or two of the storm closes the documentation loop you opened at the start of the season.
Post-storm: inspect, document, then repair.
Safety first, then a full walkthrough
Downed lines, gas smell, standing water near electrical — those are calls to JEA and 911, not property management. Once it's safe: roof, ceilings, windows, fences, trees, and inside every unit, with the tenant's cooperation.
Photograph damage before touching it
Document everything as found, then mitigate. Insurers expect you to prevent further damage — tarp the roof, extract water, board the broken window — and they reimburse reasonable mitigation. Keep every receipt.
Report the claim promptly and in writing
Florida policies have notice deadlines, and after a big storm the queue is first-come. Claim number in hand before the adjuster conversation, everything confirmed in writing.
Be careful who you sign with
After every Florida storm, door-knocking contractors appear with paperwork. Don't sign anything that assigns your insurance claim or benefits to a contractor without reading it cold — use licensed, insured vendors you or your manager already know, and get the certificate of insurance before work starts.
What we do when a storm comes.
For the properties we manage, this page isn't a to-do list you execute alone. When a storm threatens Jacksonville, we notify tenants with instructions and the emergency reporting line, check on vacant units, and stage our vendor list — the same licensed plumbers, roofers, and tree crews we work with all year, not whoever is available after. Afterward, we inspect, document damage with photos for your insurance file, triage emergency work orders through the tenant portal, and coordinate repairs.
The billing works like every other month: our fee is 10% of collected rent, storm or no storm, and repair invoices reach you at actual cost with receipts. No "emergency coordination fee," no markup on the tarp. If your current manager charges differently for bad weather, switching takes about 30 days.