If your Lee County homeowners policy is asking about your panel brand, here's what's actually behind the question. Updated July 2026.
Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) "Stab-Lok" panels and Zinsco panels were widely installed in homes built roughly between the 1950s and late 1970s. Both brands are long out of production, but plenty of them are still live in Lee County homes from that era — quietly doing their job, until they don't.
The documented problem with both brands is the same: their circuit breakers can fail to trip during an overload or short circuit. A breaker's entire job is to cut power before a fault turns into heat, then fire — a breaker that doesn't trip when it should is a panel that isn't doing the one thing it's there for. Zinsco panels have an added failure mode: the breaker-to-bus connections are prone to overheating and melting even under normal use, which can fuse breakers in the "on" position.
Neither panel fails on a predictable schedule — many have run for decades without incident. That's part of what makes them dangerous: there's no reliable warning sign short of a licensed inspection.
Homeowners insurance underwriting in Florida has gotten sharply more conservative in recent years, and panel brand is now a standard question on new policies and renewals alike. Many carriers won't write or renew a policy on a home with a known Federal Pacific or Zinsco panel still in service — full stop — regardless of how the rest of the home's wiring looks.
Open your panel door and check the brand name printed on the panel itself or the breakers inside. "Federal Pacific Electric," "FPE," or "Stab-Lok" identifies one; "Zinsco" or "Sylvania-Zinsco" (Zinsco was acquired by Sylvania) identifies the other. If you're not sure what you're looking at, or the home was built before the mid-1990s and the panel's never been replaced, that's exactly what a licensed electrical inspection settles.
A straightforward panel swap is usually a one-day job — see our panel upgrades page for what's involved and current pricing. Most Lee County homeowners doing this are either responding directly to an insurance requirement or getting ahead of one before a renewal.