Thoughts Evoked From Katrina New Orleans Coverage At Ten

I just heard this on the BBC.

One of the problems that New Orleans property owners have faced is that their insurance coverage has taken forever to adjudicate.

And when adjudicated the companies have offered manifold reasons why they don’t cover what happened.

And, of course, the variance between what was covered and what was not covered – if anything is left over for payment - when actually covered and paid doesn’t  anywhere near pay for rebuilding.

But wait. 

There is more.

When, or if, the property owners somehow add the money back to their personal coffers that is necessary to rebuild, the insurance companies have some new news for them: they need to rebuild to much higher insurability standards; and they need to pay increased premiums non-respective to the increased durability of those higher standards.

We are so fucked.

We need to figure out how to be un-fucked.

Maybe we need to nationalize Assurance de America.