Declarations Page

What it means

A declarations page, often shortened to "dec page," is the summary section of a Florida homeowners or dwelling insurance policy that states the specific facts of your coverage on one or two pages. It identifies the named insured, the insured property address, the policy number and policy period, the mortgage or lienholder, and the insurer issuing the contract. Most importantly, it lists your coverage limits by category (dwelling, other structures, personal property, loss of use, and liability), your deductibles, and the endorsements and optional coverages attached to the policy. Where the policy jacket and endorsements contain the legal terms and conditions, the declarations page is the quick-reference sheet that tells you the dollar amounts those terms apply to.

The declarations page exists because an insurance policy is a long, standardized contract, while the coverage inside it is customized to each policyholder. The forms describe how each coverage works in general; the declarations page fills in the blanks that make the contract yours: your limits, your deductibles, your endorsements, and your premium. In Florida, several of these entries carry legal weight. The page will show whether your dwelling and contents are settled on a replacement cost value (RCV) or actual cash value (ACV) basis, the ordinance-or-law coverage percentage you carry, and the separate percentage-based hurricane deductible that Florida law treats differently from your standard all-other-perils deductible.

How it works on a Florida claim is direct: the numbers on the declarations page determine what you can recover and what comes out of your pocket. Under Florida Statute 627.701, a policy with a separate hurricane deductible must prominently display the actual dollar value of that deductible on the declarations page at issuance and on the renewal declarations page, and the page must carry a bold statutory notice that a separate hurricane deductible applies. The hurricane deductible is a percentage of the policy dwelling limits, with statutory options offered of $500, 2 percent, 5 percent, and 10 percent, so a 2 percent deductible on a $400,000 dwelling limit is $8,000 before you collect a dollar. That is why reading the dec page correctly is the first step in valuing any storm claim.

Florida Statute 627.7011 sits behind two other dec-page entries. It governs whether the insurer pays replacement cost or actual cash value on the dwelling and on personal property, and it sets the ordinance-or-law coverage tiers of 25 percent (the default) and 50 percent of the dwelling limit. On a replacement cost dwelling loss that is not a total loss, the statute allows the insurer to initially pay at least ACV less the deductible and then pay the remaining amounts (the recoverable depreciation) as repairs are performed. Knowing which basis your declarations page shows tells you whether the carrier is allowed to hold back depreciation at all, and how much ordinance-or-law money is available to bring a damaged structure up to current code.

In practice

On a real Florida claim, the declarations page is where adjusting begins. Before anyone inspects the roof, a good public adjuster confirms the dwelling limit (Coverage A), the RCV or ACV basis, the all-other-perils deductible, the separate hurricane deductible in actual dollars, and the ordinance-or-law percentage. Those five entries frame the entire recovery. A hurricane deductible is applied to the dwelling limit, not to the amount of the loss, so a homeowner who does not read the dec page can badly misjudge whether a claim is even worth filing, or conversely give up on a claim that clears the deductible with room to spare.

The common pitfalls tie directly to how carriers use the page. A frequent one is settlement on an ACV basis when the homeowner believed they had replacement cost: the carrier pays depreciated value, cites the dec page, and the shortfall is the homeowner's to absorb unless the policy actually allows recoverable depreciation. Another is the hurricane deductible surprise, where a policyholder expects a $2,500 deductible and learns the storm triggered the 2 percent hurricane figure printed on the dec page instead, which can be several times larger. Ordinance-or-law is a third: when repairs require code upgrades, a policy capped at the 25 percent default may run short of what a 50 percent election would have covered.

Because Florida law requires specific disclosures on the dec page, discrepancies matter. If the hurricane deductible dollar amount is missing, the bold statutory notice is absent, or the endorsements listed do not match the coverage the carrier is actually applying, those are documentable issues. A public adjuster reads the declarations page against the full policy and the loss, then holds the carrier to the coverage the homeowner paid for rather than the reduced version an initial offer may assume.

Related guide: What Does a Public Adjuster Do?