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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-10-03

Adding Insult to Injury

My sister alerted me to this story . . .

If this sort of thing is true, systemic, and widespread, it is the sort of thing that should cost companies HUGE amounts of public relations points, which should translate into HUGE losses in the corporate bank account.

Many South Mississippi homeowners devastated by Katrina put a human face on the "wind vs. water" insurance issue for a small group of lawmakers Monday, with sometimes tearful testimony.
"If they are going to tell you you are covered, and that you don't need additional coverage, then they should be responsible," said Kathryn Stone of Pascagoula.

Stone, joined by husband Leon and their son and daughter-in-law, who also testified Monday, were among thousands of South Mississippi homeowners who didn't have separate flood insurance.

They are being told their homeowners' policies won't cover damage from Katrina's waters because of flood exclusions. . . .

. . .insurance companies are improperly hiding behind flood exclusions. He said many structures the companies are trying to claim were destroyed by water were obviously destroyed first by winds. He said he has videotape to prove this for at least one area of Gulfport.

Look, I'm as much a pro-business guy as you'll find. Generally, I'm convinced that as soon as a legislature gets involved in "solving" a problem, you can be pretty sure it's gonna get worse.

But for insurance companies to try to fall back on the idea that "flooding" does not include uh . . .flooding . . . because the source was a hurricane rather than a river overflowing, is pretty thin, pretty crappy, and pretty much calls for some sort of government intervention.
Posted by: Michael / 10/03/2005 02:35:00 AM

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