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Florida homeowners claiming an insurance discount for installing storm proof windows and doors will soon have to jump through more hoops. As Whitney Ray tells us, changes to the discount process are being made to stop people from lying about home improvements to save more money.

Florida homeowners can claim hundreds of dollars in insurance discounts by installing hurricane shutters and other hardware making homes safer.

But some people have been taking advantage of the system, lying or exaggerating about improvements on insurance forms and getting away with it.

“It is a mixture of: the rules were not stringent enough, and there were some people who were knowingly creating fraudulent inspections or weren’t doing an adequate amount of work,” said Bob Lotane with NAIFA.

Citizen’s Property Insurance surveyed 450 homes with questionable discounts and found two out of every three were receiving more savings than they were entitled.

To help cut down on false claims, the state is doubling the size of the discount verification form and requiring pictures of the improvements.

“It’s a form that’s required to be accepted by the insurance companies, so to the extent we could make it help prevent fraud or detect fraud some of the things in it do that,” said Belinda Miller, the Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Insurance Regulation.

But even if homeowners can prove they deserve the discounts, the savings they get may soon be reduced anyway. There’s legislation that would reduce the discounts policyholders get for strengthening their homes.

The discounts are costing insurance companies 100’s of millions of dollars, and industry experts say often times the improvements aren’t saving the companies very much money.

Homeowners who currently receive the discounts won’t have to fill out the new verification form until their old form expires or if they apply for additional discounts or change insurers.