This fall I got a chance to visit the areas on the gulf coast of Mississippi where the eye of Hurricane Katrina ripped through towns like Waveland and Bay St Louis. A giant wave that was over 30 feet high wash in over this lowlying little peninsula and took many houses back out to sea with it. Many of those houses had absolutely no flood insurance because they were ineligible - they were just a few feet above a poorly calculated 100 year floodplain. Now they have recalculated the floodplain and many of those houses would still be out of the floodplain and ineligible for any flood insurance, if they could afford it. Those that should have been covered said that the insurance companies aften tried to claim that the damage was the wrong kind (water vs. wind).
15 months later it was still a ghost town with few houses being rebuilt because so many owners were uninsured or underinsured.
Today's Washington Post said that insurance companies are getting pretty nervous about coastal zones, especially as they consider the possibility of sea
level rise. As a result, many are thinking of getting out of
the business of insuring properties along the shores. The article points out that if they quit insuring these properties businesses won't go there and both old and new homes will be seriously impacted. New buyers might be unable to get mortgages.
What will the new shorelines of America look like?
UPDATE: Our local paper now reports that Allstate is going to stop selling new policies in NJ because a hurricane could bankrupt them. The state says it isn't a big deal even though Allstate is the #2 insurer in NJ behind the ever-popular State Farm.
No comments:
Post a Comment