I was lucky enough to buy a cheap fixer in 2015 and raced to pay it off in 5 years. I keep homeowners on my house, but have cancelled wind and flood. My homeowners is very reasonable, but my wind & flood was already up to 4.5% of the purchase price of my home and rising fast. I stash the money not paid away (I-bonds for now), and in just two years have saved more than the cost of a new metal roof.

This is not a good plan if money is tight and if insurance isn't ridiculous. I consider this risk ok for me because I fully expect my house to be blown away every year and I'll build an elevated hurricane resistant (concrete) home because my lot is amazing. If my gamble pays off, I'll have saved enough money in just a few more years to elevate my home 10' and mitigate any chance of flood if I want to go that route. This is all very anecdotal and probably a horrible route for most people. My home was built in 79 and only flooded once (Katrina), so I'm willing to roll the dice.