Santa Barbara's ABC Affiliate Airs Compelling 2-Part Original Katrina Series

by Ana Maria

Last night, the Santa Barbara ABC affiliate interviewed Kevin Davis, a budding would-be reporter who had just returned from his self-financed trip to the Katrina-ravaged region. In his interview on InFocus, Kevin aired part 1 of his two-part video titled Katrina Revisited.

Kevin’s mini series demonstrates compellingly the devastating financial crisis that can befall the 55% of Americans who live within 50 miles of our nation’s beautiful coastlines. His series demonstrates further that Taylor’s multiple peril insurance proposal is the answer to protect the financial security of everyday Americans who work hard, play by the rules, and expect an insurance policy to provide the financial security we pay for it to provide.

While doing his research long before coming to the area, Kevin came across my blog A.M. in the Morning! which I had posted on my Daily Kos diary. Regular readers know I focus exclusively on real life inside Katrina Land, with a specific focus on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Kevin decided to contact me to share his plans to come to New Orleans. I recommended that he consider including three parts of the Katrina story that would surely be overlooked by most of the mainstream programs.

1. The ongoing devastating economic harshness of living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

2. How the insurance companies have played a major role in preventing its policyholders like Joe De Benvenutti and Congressman Gene Taylor and plenty of other throughout the Katrina area from rebuilding their homes, businesses, lives, and communities.

3. The absolute necessity of passing the multiple peril insurance policy that Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) sponsored, legislation that is now a part of the federal flood insurance reauthorization bill on which Congress will soon vote. Brilliantly, Kevin incorporated everything into a two-part short video, the first part of which aired last night on Santa Barbara’s popular Sunday evening program InFocus during his interview on the program.

Here is part 1 that Kevin showed on InFocus.



I’m hoping that the popularity of Kevin’s interview and the compelling story he revealed in part 1 of this series will assist in guaranteeing that he will land a follow-up interview where the second part can also be aired. In Part 2, Kevin addresses the multiple peril insurance act directly and ends the piece with his interview with Congressman Taylor, the original sponsor of this landmark legislation. The congressman's interview provides undeniably persuasive and convincing reasons that the nation must offer its citizens one policy for both flood and wind damage, a policy option which private industry does not offer.

My favorites in the series are Congressman Taylor, Joe De Benvenutti, and Lisa Palumbo. In the spirit of full disclosure, however, Kevin also included two clips of yours truly as well.

Taylor told Kevin,

“People say ‘Well, gee. How is it the flood program loses $19 billion the same year that the insurance industry collectively cleared about $60 billion?’ Well, it’s no coincidence. The tax payers paid bills that the insurance companies should have paid.”

Taylor explained how families and businesses benefit from his proposed multiple peril legislation.

“and you can buy an option on your flood insurance for all perils. So that whether the wind did it, the water did it, if you come home to a slab, if you come home and your home was substantially destroyed, it doesn’t matter.

If you built it the way you were supposed to, if you paid your premiums, and the storm gets it, you’re gonna get paid. You don’t have to hire a lawyer. You don’t have to hire an engineer . . . and wait years to get the check that you should have gotten within days.”

That is how is should be.



To help propel the airing of this second part—seen here courtesy of Kevin Davis and A.M. in the Morning!;), let’s channel our political hell raising energy into contacting the station to request that they air Part 2. Santa Barbara is an important media market.

Contact the station know that their budding reporter has provided the world with a gift and that we’d like them to consider bringing him back on to show part 2. As always, A.M. in the Morning! provides a phone script with the phone number to achieve this important goal to help get this series aired in an important media market.

Hopefully, this bright, young, energetic, soulful man’s two-part series will also launch his new on-camera reporting career. Our nation needs more reporters who deliberately seek out the stories that need talents like Kevin’s that can tell the story in a movingly compelling manner.


Kevin Davis works as a production assistant for KEYT-TV, an ABC affiliate in Santa Barbara, CA, and is currently looking for his first reporting job. Last week, A.M. in the Morning! published an interview with CNN’s Kathleen Koch that Kevin Davis shot here in Bay St. Louis. Kevin can be reached at 925-788-1803 and kdavis2600@gmail.com.


© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Grateful: Home Builder's Assoc. Strong Ally in Insurance Reform

by Ana Maria

My heart danced with great joy and I burst out in smiles all over the place the other night. I had received the email announcing the great news that the National Association of Home Builders has endorsed Congressman Gene Taylor’s multiple peril insurance policy proposal. This is a big victory for home and business owners. The NAHB is an incredible ally in helping to restore the financial security many of us believe we have when we buy home or business owner insurance policies.

Taylor and his wife Margaret lost their home in Katrina, were denied wind-related damages, and had to hire Dickie Scruggs to fight their insurance company. A Democrat who represents South Mississippi, Taylor and his staff have worked tirelessly on insurance reform. The news about the homebuilders is a welcome addition to the team, I’m sure.

How fantastic that a major, important, and mainstream player in our nation’s economy “gets it.” The National Homebuilders Association understands the crippling negative economic impact of requiring home and business owners to purchase insurance-in-name-only. The impact? Financial ruin for the individual homeowner or business owner and for all the connecting businesses as well, connecting businesses like . . . homebuilders, developers, architects, contractors, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, bricklayers, and so on and so forth.

Their announcement is a great shot of energy that even I felt when I read the article. I’ve been here only six months, yet I’m already experiencing some energy shifts, what one person referred to as the 6-month burnout. Well, I’m not burn out. I am frustrated as hell, though.

I like to get things done. Period. Figure out what needs doing, set my mind to doing it, and begin moving heaven-hell-and-earth to get it done. In no time flat, voila! It’s done no matter what impossibilities may have been required to overcome.

Katrina Land is a different kettle of fish, however. Like many others, I want to do more, but the reality of the enormity of the obstacles astounds me. Help and leadership that would have been here, say, eight or nine years ago, is no where to be found. The brazen abandonment by those leaders upon whom we depend in national or natural emergencies remains shocking, the stinging betrayal unrecognizably unfathomable.

Six years ago today, our entire nation experienced the devastation that we now refer to simply as 9-11. The loss of life profound. The impact on those families immeasurable. Nationally, we felt vulnerable in ways we had not ever before felt.

This week’s 60 Minutes aired a piece titled The Dust At Ground Zero. Yes, today, many first responders and others suffer from breathing in air that the Bush Administration declared safe. Another Bush betrayal in the face of a national emergency.

The Katrina-ravaged region remains a national emergency. When Bush brags about the billions appropriated to the Katrina region, he fails to mention how much remains in the pipeline hung up by his own executive branch politics and bureaucratic red tape that he could clear—if only he wanted to. Instead, he comes to the area for his annual photo op, speaks his niceties and another round of empty promises, and goes to his next stop to do the same. His is a betrayal of pretension.

That’s the kind of betrayal that the insurance industry has imposed upon us nationally as American consumers of residential and business policies. When an insurance company sells policies that fail to do what we pay our good money for it to do, then the insurance company commits betrayal through pretension.

While it may ultimately come as no surprise that Bush’s corporate buddies in the insurance industry betrayed us, the emotional and financial reality of this betrayal has upended our lives permanently in much the same devastating way as 9-11 upended the nation.

I know that insurance is one of those boring, mundane, non-sexy aspects of our lives. There’s nothing all that dramatic about it, except when we don’t have it. Don’t have it, for example, because when our good neighbor sold wind damage insurance to us, we didn’t realize that we when we needed it most we would not be in good hands after all.

Our good neighbor in whose good hands we had hoped to be should something befall us, had apparently pretended to sell us the financial security we desired. Our money went to secure the industry’s $108 billion profits in 2005-2006, but not to secure our homes and businesses.

Fortunately, help has begun to arrive. For this, we are grateful. The announcement that the National Association of Home Builders is joining forces with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), and Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) creates a stronger foundation to achieve real financial security for America’s home and business owners. As we all move forward together to do our part to solve this financial security crisis, those are good hands to be in.

© 2007 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Hancock Bank Can Teach Bush A Thing or Two

by Ana Maria

Who would have ever thought that a bank would be the anchor business for beachfront revitalization in Bay St. Louis, Miss., one of the tiny beach towns that comprise Katrina’s ground zero? Yet, that is exactly the case with Hancock Bank, Mississippi’s largest and a strong regional bank as well.

As the flagship business for renewing Bay St. Louis’ beach front/downtown/Old Town business district, Hancock Bank’s reopening provides unparalleled leadership locally and even nationally.

How’s this for a demonstration of Katrina responsiveness?

One of the bank’s officers told the celebration’s crowd of a few hundred that in the storm’s immediate aftermath, Hancock Bank took a satchel of money to some central location and began to cash checks. The bank knew that folks needed cash to buy supplies. Thoughtful, indeed. And good business, of course. But, here’s the kicker.

Hancock Bank even took IOU’s from people. That’s right. A bank in the year 2007 took IOUs from people just to get cash in their pockets so that these Katrina survivors could begin to . . . survive.

THAT’s innovation. THAT’s leadership. THAT’s responsiveness. THAT’s creativity. And that is how forward thinking, responsive leaders act, particularly when the worst natural disaster hits an area.

Hancock Bank Could Teach Bush A Thing or Two
Contrast Hancock Bank’s response with the Bush Administration that wants to know why it is that in the immediate aftermath of this same natural disaster that virtually wiped out so many cities in Katrina’s wake that city officials didn’t go through the traditional bidding process and get the least cost for the services needed. For more on that White House foolishness, read Dirt, Dead Bodies, and White House Dirt Bags.

Contrast Mississippi’s largest bank taking IOUs with Bush’s Administration that is holding out millions and millions and millions of federal reimbursement checks perhaps with an eye on outright stiffing Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama cities and towns for the clean up costs for which the federal government is supposed to pay. Compassionate, my you-know-what! [For more on Bush's Administration holding out on reimbursement funds, see When You're Up To You're Ass in Alligators and The "F" Word: FEMA.]

Bush talks compassionate, but doesn’t walk it. Hancock Bank doesn’t say anything and just takes care of the people who have helped it grow over the last century. That’s leadership.

Hancock Bank's Humble Beginnings in the Bay
Hancock Bank was founded in 1899 right here in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and its initial branch was on this very same spot along Beach Boulevard where this grand re-opening was held yesterday evening. As one bank representative said to us at the ceremony, this 100 plus beach front property has been through four major hurricanes and plenty of financial dark times for the banking industry—most notably the Great Depression and the Savings & Loan crisis during the Reagan years.

At the town hall meeting that Congressman Gene Taylor held last week, Board Chair George Schloegel told the standing room only crowd that the bank is not carrying any insurance on the building. It cannot afford the rates. Should the building be destroyed in the future, the cost of rebuilding will be spread over its multi-state branches. However, he continued, families have one home and can’t spread the costs of rebuilding or renovating their homes like Hancock Bank is able to do. Scholoegel supports Congressman Taylor’s Multiple Peril Insurance Act which adds wind coverage to the federal flood insurance program.

“Schloegel brought the house down when he remarked that the insurance companies didn’t have to hire lawyers and haul us to court to get us to pay our premiums. Why should we have to hire lawyers and haul them to court to get them to pay on our wind policy claims?!”

Great people, a great community asset, and a great business citizen in this tiny beach town. Others around the country should take note and follow its example, including the Bush Administration.

At yesterday’s celebration, I was fortunate to run into George Schloegel and told him that I just LOVED his comment on premiums and hiring lawyers. He looked down at me smiling as he told me that he just said it the way he sees it.

Ahhhh, yes. Boy am I ever home where the verbal guessing game is unnecessary. Talking with us doesn’t require reading between the lines. What you see is what you get. Period. That’s unheard of in the political and corporate circles I’ve traveled in around the country.

Celebrating in Typical Bay St. Louis Fashion
We love our music and great food. Yesterday evening’s celebration was typical Bay St. Louis complete with a live Dixieland Jazz band and two huge tables filled with plenty of great food.

The food was stupendous! None of this barely edible appetizers many try to pass off at such occasions. Absolutely, this was a veritable feast of baby tomatoes stuffed with shrimp salad, potato salad, chicken kabobs, a couple of other meats (I don’t know which because I eat seafood only), jambalaya, and a number of delicious deserts.

When I was growing up, Dixieland Jazz was definitely a favorite genre of music in our home. I remember my father telling me that when he was a young man still living with his parents on Magazine Street in New Orleans, he and his brother were forbidden from holding band practice at home. My paternal grandparents came from Italy, and my grandfather taught music—old style and old school. No, I’m not talking Motown old school. I’m talking something quite different.

Today, we learn musical notes by a letter designation. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Back then—and yeah, it’s not quite a century ago now, my grandfather taught music Do, Re, Mi, Fa . . . which some of us learned from the Sound of Music. Trust me, it was NOT that kind of teaching. My point is that life was, well, different way back, but the attitude of the older folks toward the younger one's musical tastes remain rather similar.

My grandfather apparently wasn’t too keen on the new ways and would not permit jazz to be played in the house. “Not real music” my father would tell me his dad would say. Eventually, my grandfather allowed his sons to bring their jazz band to practice in the house on one condition. They had to tell their father when the band would be practicing so he could leave. My dad told me that his father thought jazz wasn’t “real music” and that is would be a death knell for the orchestra.

A few years back, I myself knew that I had reached the generational divide when certain songs were played and I thought, “That’s not music!!” I don’t think my grandfather was whispering to me from the grave, either.

Every generation has their musical tastes, I suppose. (But really, how can it be “music” without a good beat to dance to?! Just kidding.) Some things never change from generation to generation.

Nevertheless, for this child of a former jazz musician, listening to the Dixieland tunes being played reminded me of dancing with my father who has long since passed away. As a little girl, he would put me on his shoes and we’d dance. I love those memories.

That’s part of the magic of Hancock Bank’s reopening in the same spot it has always operated for 100 years. Coming home to memories. Clearly the bank’s decision to rebuild in the same spot has more to do with tradition, history, and a sense of community than some actuarial bean counting analysis. That’s what creates strong families, neighborhoods, communities, towns, and cities. It’s about strong memories, a sense of history, a sense of belonging.

Last night, we all belonged at that wonderful celebration. We felt a sense of community, a hopefulness, a renewed desire to rebuild our town.

With all of the celebration and laughter underneath the stars and moonlight, who would have thought that anyone there had a care in the world.

But, oh, we all have many, many cares. Katrina took away nearly everyone’s homes either completely or devastated the homes so much that it took ages to clean it up to make do while living in it as the rest was being worked on.

Katrina took away so very much, which many fear may never return in their lifetimes. Last night I was talking with a couple that I hadn’t seen in over 25 years. Now in their 60’s and 70’s, how can they start over particularly when the insurance company low balls or outright denies payment on legitimate wind claims on a policy they’ve paid premiums for years?

Our sorrows are deep, healing is slow, and payments from insurance companies slower exacerbating our sorrows and our healing.

So how can we enjoy ourselves at all? We know that life isn’t about sorrow only or happy times only. It is about how they intermingle, intertwine within our lives. Here in Bay St. Louis, Miss., we tend soothe our sorrows and celebrate our joys with great tasting food, good music in the background, and great company. That’s one of our secrets to our sanity, our generosity, our vibrant culture. That’s how we are able to survive Katrina and the betrayal from Big Insurance and Bush’s Administration.

With business sensitivity and innovation like that which Hancock Bank has shown and the internal fortitude of our residents, that's how the Bay will return to its vibrancy complete with all the festive trimmings to celebrate every milestone along the way.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Katrina-Land: A Lesson in Crossing the Political Divide

by Ana Maria

Today is the day I’ve been looking forward to for quite sometime. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leads a delegation to New Orleans and over to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see the state of post-Katrina living. Last year I was living in San Jose, Calif., which is about an hour’s south of San Francisco—the district that Pelosi represents. I wasn’t here for Katrina, though plenty of my family members were. I remember when I read that Pelosi had led a delegation of Democrats to this area last year. I was thrilled!

I became happily stunned when I read that the town hall meeting was in my own hometown of Bay St. Louis, Miss. Then, I became almost speechless beaming from ear-to-ear when I realized that the Town Hall meeting was held in the parish hall of Our Lady of the Gulf Church parish hall. I had attended OLG elementary school and then Our Lady’s Academy from 7-12th grades. I felt honored though my strong separation of Church and State perspective wasn’t all that thrilled with it being held in a Catholic school setting. I have since found out that available venues are, indeed, a premium. Same goes for the one being held tonight. As this year’s delegation will find out, significant feats in recovery and rebuild are wholly absent in New Orleans and all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

I’m glad that I’ll attend this year. Part of the purpose of the meeting, I believe, is a follow up from last year. Speaker Pelosi had told the Gulf Coast residents that if the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives, that she would ensure that it would provide hearings for multiple peril insurance and pass it. A woman of her word, Speaker Pelosi has ensured that first two of the formal three-step process has already been met. The Republicans have been fighting this all the way, and the Bush White House has already announced its opposition to it.

Undeterred, Pelosi said she would do her part, and she is making good on her word. A subcommittee of and the full Finance Committee have passed the bill that would expand the federal flood insurance program to include wind. With one policy where American home and business owners can get both wind and flood insurance coverage, we won’t have private insurance industry deliberately failing to pay on the wind insurance policies as the industry has apparently done. We will have the option of having one policy and one carrier for both. Remember, the private insurance companies got out of the insurance business in the 60’s.

When Pelosi returns to the Katrina-ravaged region today, she does so as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Where are the high ranking Republicans who ought to be attending? For that matter, where were they last year?

From what I have learned, once again, no Republican is attending. Not one. This is more than disappointing. When Katrina hit, the storm blew through Republican and Democratic homes and businesses alike. When Katrina hit, the storm devastated right wing Republican homes and businesses along with Democratic ones. When the insurance industry abandoned and betrayed Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana residents and business owners, it abandoned and betrayed Republican and Democratic ones simultaneously.

This hurricane was nonpartisan. The ensuing financial and physical devastation are nonpartisan. The depression and post-traumatic stress that plagues the areas residents and businessowners are nonpartisan. The cry for assistance is also nonpartisan. I am grateful that the highest levels of Democratic leadership as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demonstrated last year and this are hearing and responding to our plea. It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. It is the compassionate thing to do.

Wasn’t it George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who campaigned on compassion? Apparently, it is the Democrats who DO compassion whereas Republicans only use it as a campaign slogan.

Isn’t the Republican Party the one that loves to campaign about being pro-family? Katrina hit families hard, and those families continue to hurt. Guess it isn’t the right year for campaign photo ops and speeches that give the impression of being pro-family, huh? Republicans TALK compassion. Democrats DO compassion.

Isn’t the Republican Party the one that likes to campaign on issues of fiscal responsibility? Oooops. Bush’s FEMA is anything but fiscally responsible. Take their handling of delivering formaldehyde-filled FEMA trailers. On the floor of the House of Representatives, Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) spoke to the issue of the Bush Administration’s fraudulent practices through FEMA.

But those trailers were delivered by a friend of the president by the name of Riley Bechtel, a major contributor to Bush administration. He got $16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Purvis, Miss., down to the Gulf Coast, hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap, and plug it in, $16,000.

Isn’t the Republican Party the one that likes to campaign on issues important to business? When the insurance industry fails to pay on the wind insurance policies that its customers paid premiums, the industry members are not distinguishing between wrongfully denying customers based on whether they are residential or commercial customers. No, sir, they are not. As the insurance industry fails to pay out on its wind insurance policies for which business owners have paid their premiums, these businesses cannot rebuild, cannot open their doors, and cannot return to their customers and employees. The same is true when insurance rates are no longer affordable. To thrive, communities must have businesses: grocery stores, clothing stores, malls, auto repair shops, paint stores, music stores, movie theaters, restaurants, etc.

I have driven all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Lakeshore, Miss., on the far western corner along Beach Boulevard across the new Bay Bridge all the way to Biloxi about 40 miles away. I didn’t see ONE gas station. Not ONE. In fact, I hardly saw any businesses or residences or the construction of any of these either. Here we are up against the two-year anniversary. What I did see were plenty of wide open space where homes and businesses were once plentiful.

Tonight will be interesting from a number of perspectives. It’s my second one with Speaker Pelosi. Back in 2001, she held a town hall meeting in her district of San Francisco, which I attended. It was vibrant and alive. I felt exhilarated by the entirety of it all. A Bay kid (yours truly from Bay St. Louis, Miss.) at a town hall meeting in the hub of what the world knows as the Bay area of California—San Francisco. Most people there expressed outrage at the stolen 2000 presidential election.

(Boy, if the Bush White House neglect in Hurricane Katrina doesn’t demonstrate clearly that election outcomes have consequences . )

Tonight’s town hall meeting is going to be a fundamentally different topic. It’s going to be fundamentally different for me, though, because the topic is deeply personal. I’ve lived the post-Katrina life now for five months. I’m native. I needed no tutoring on the customs and values here. I possess them. I need no photos of the pre-Katrina landscape. I have vibrant memories seared in my mind. I need no explanation of why the Mississippi Gulf Coast residents—regardless of our ethnicity or when our ancestors arrived or how, think and act as they do. All of this is in my own DNA. I need no explanation of the values here for these are in my heart.

Throughout the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we are all hard working, humble, modest people who value family, friends, and community. We are among the poorest areas in the country.
Folks around here tend to keep their head down and trudge through whatever obstacles are before them. We are fiercely independent in nature and value self-reliance even when help would make life easier, better. We are forever grateful when someone does assist us. Loyalty is big for us.

Our collective fascination with the intricacies of the political world is on par with that throughout the country. Not much. In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster, though, the only political sophistication that will remain seared in our collective memory is who came here to help. We’re forever grateful to all volunteers whether they came here in person or sent their George Washington envoy (money).

With the private insurance industry rolling over us and Bush’s FEMA, our memory of who helped us will have two faces on it today. Mississippi’s own Congressman Gene Taylor, a conservative, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a progressive. In a way, this is what it really means to reach across the proverbial political divide to get things done on behalf of the American people where ever we live in our nation.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Winds of Change in Hurricane Season

by Ana Maria

Today marks the beginning of hurricane season. I know. You thought hurricane season began June 1st. Locally inside Katrina Land, though, we think of hurricane season in terms of when the big storms have hit us, which historically have been in August and September.

• Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans in September 1965.
• Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast mid-August 1969.
• Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast on August 29th, 2005.

See the pattern? The hope, of course, is that if we are lucky enough to get to October without a major storm, the construction boom will begin, and a much more robust recovery will ensue. God, I sure hope the general perspective is accurate.

However, the biggest impediment to recovery remains the cost of insurance, as one Gulf Coast county chamber of commerce executive director said. The second impediment she mentioned is the lack of employees, which is brought on by the lack of available housing. Of course, housing is hindered by the lack of insurance: not paying the claims they owe policy holders, jacking up the costs, reducing coverage while jacking up the cost to policyholders, or cutting out of the area altogether. So, insurance remains the biggest impediment to recovery now as well as after this hurricane season blows over.

There we have it. Insurance is the big bugaboo to a vibrant, robust, rock-your-socks off post-Katrina recovery.

When I talked with a shop owner in New Orleans, she told me that neither the storm nor the levee breaks touched her store. Burglars looted it after the after levees were breached, and all chaos broke out across the city. Since then, her insurance carrier no longer offers wind insurance—only fire. Oh, it no longer offers her theft insurance—the only thing she needed to use after Katrina.

Thus the reason customers like yours truly, my niece and her little friend had to ring a door bell to get into the front door rather than the usual walking in off Magazine Street to see what kind of goodies we might like to buy. I don’t know about you, but I would imagine that installing a buzzer to let in customers may just be another barrier to a shop returning to business as usual. Another impediment to business brought to us by the good neighborly types in the insurance industry.

The industry’s pattern didn’t start with Katrina. No ma’am. For a number of years, businesses and homeowners in Florida have been suffering from this insurance affliction. Today, things remain, uh, grim. A few days ago, a Miami Herald article told a story that was quite revealing.

South Florida's business owners, like homeowners, aren't seeing relief from soaring windstorm rates.

What may be around the corner for them: rates that could double or even triple. Some insurers covering commercial property, including shops, restaurants, hotels and offices, have requested rate increases ranging from 142 percent to 225 percent. . . .

These come at a time when insurance at any price is still hard to find. The stakes are huge for South Florida's economy, fueled by thousands of small- and medium-sized companies already struggling with the slumping real estate market and high cost of living. Rising insurance premiums not only strain their balance sheets, the extra costs ripple into consumers' pockets.

Miami Herald
July 29, 2007

A taste of this week’s headlines in the Southeast—including Georgia and South Carolina—are equally telling of the state of insurance for business owners.

Alabama
• Study: Businesses hurt by rising insurance costs Mobile Press Register

Florida
• Florida's insurance crisis hitting businesses hard Miami Herald
• Little insurance relief for businesses Miami Herald
• Florida's biggest storm this summer might not be tropical. Insurance commissioner Kevin McCarty has seen the future of property insurance rates in Florida. And he's preparing for war. St. Petersburg Times
• At least that crisis is fixed - oh, wait ... St. Petersburg Times

Louisiana
• EDITORIAL: Don't gamble on coverage New Orleans Times Picayune

Mississippi
• Home insurance qualify of life issue for Coast Mississippi Press

South Carolina
• Rate hike to hit coast: Homeowners with wind pool insurance to pay an average of 35 percent more The State (Columbia, SC)
• Wind (pool) of change: State Insurance Department OKs 35 percent increase Charleston Post and Courier
• Bigger wind pool to show up in bills: Rates to increase by 35 percent on average Myrtle Beach Sun News
• Wind pool premiums to rise 35 percent (Hilton Head) Island Packet

The Winds of Change for Insurance Reform Picking Up
With the private insurance corporations abandoning American families and businesses en masse, the good news is that that business owners are hailing as a piece of much welcomed news the Multiple Peril Insurance Act that Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) authored in the House of Representatives. Last week among party lines with only a few good Republicans joining the leadership of all the Democrats, the House Financial Services Committee passed the reauthorization bill for the National Flood Insurance Program which included the multiple peril insurance act on which Taylor has been working diligently.

The multiple peril insurance act follows the Democratic House rules of fiscal responsibility—a breath of fresh air after years of Republican spending like a bunch of drunken sailors. Speaker Pelosi demands that new legislation pay for itself, and Taylor’s bill does just that. So anyone who starts yammering to the contrary is, well, full of hot air. Thankfully, the winds of change for insurance reform are picking up speed.

A Miami Herald editorial stated, “One bit of potential good news: Insurance reform is on the Washington agenda.

Another Miami Herald piece reported

“A development last week in Washington could potentially help very small businesses. A U.S. House committee passed a bill that would extend the National Flood Insurance Program to include windstorm protection, although the proposed coverage limits for businesses are low. The bill faces stiff resistance from Republicans, insurers . . . and [r]elief can't come soon enough for many businesses.”

Little insurance relief for businesses
Businesses are finding little relief
in the commercial insurance market:
Rates are still high, and windstorm coverage is scarce.
Miami Herald
July 29, 200

Business owners, particularly small and medium-sized ones, are getting on board to push for insurance relief. These owners are a critical ally in our success to pass this important proposed legislation in the House of Representatives.

If either you or someone you know is a business owner or an employee of a small to medium-sized business, then by all means, mention this critical piece of information when contacting your congressional representatives. They need to know that the multiple peril insurance part of the bill has wide spread support from business owners as well as homeowners.

''Insurance is the oil that keeps the economy going. You couldn't build anything or run a business without it. But it's very frustrating now to find the coverage clients need.''

Pablo Conde
president of A&A Underwriters in Miami

Today’s political hell raising activities are to contact (again, if that is the case) our congressional representatives. When we do, we'll tell them we are voters in their districts. If we are a business owner or work for a small to medium sized business, let's be sure to mention it as well.

Heck, small businesses are the engine that runs our economy. Anything we do to keep those businesses running and keeping their employees on the payroll will assist in putting good food on the tables of America’s families. Having a well-fed nation of people is a good thing—inside and out of hurricane season.


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

House panel votes to add wind coverage

by Sean Reilly
Mobile Press Register Washington Bureau
Original article published on July 27, 2007.

WASHINGTON -- The House Financial Services Committee agreed Thursday to add optional wind coverage to the National Flood Insurance Program, brushing aside objections that such a major step needed more study.

The bill by U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., would also increase overall coverage limits, phase out subsidized flood insurance rates for businesses and vacation homes, and authorize spending up to $400 million annually for the next five years to pay for flood map updates.

The subsidized rates generally apply to structures built before the early 1970s. For vacation homes in that category, the bill would allow flood insurance administrators to raise rates by 25 percent annually until the full risk-based premium is reached. For subsidized business structures, rate increases of 20 percent annually would be permitted.

In voting 38-29 to send the bill to the full House, the committee broke largely along party lines, with Democrats solidly in support and most Republicans opposed. In arguing for the addition of wind coverage, Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., pointed to the wave of "wind" vs. "water" disputes that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

For full discussion of the famed "wind vs water" argument, see Wind? Water? More Like a Bunch of Hot Air!


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Federal plan would cover windstorms

A House panel OK'd expanding an insurance program to cover wind damage -- which could bring comfort to Florida residents -- but the plan has Republican critics.
BY MARIA RECIO
mrecio@mcclatchydc.com
(Miami Herald version)
Original published on July 27, 2007.

WASHINGTON --A bill beginning to move through the U.S. House could dramatically change the way windstorm insurance is sold in Florida and other hurricane-prone coastal states.

The House Financial Services Committee voted 38-29 on Thursday to expand the national flood insurance program to cover wind damage. Other proposals floating around Washington would create national catastrophe funds to cover many perils, but this one is focused squarely on hurricane risk.

To be sure, the bill faces stiff opposition ahead -- particularly from Republicans. It could get a floor vote when the House returns from recess in September and, if it passes, would have to prevail in the Senate and get past the White House.
Committee member U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, said he supports the legislation and thinks it would help ease the state's windstorm woes but would not completely solve the insurance crisis.

''This could provide some relief for some people, but I still think we need to take additional steps to reduce insurance costs,'' Klein said.

Read the Miami Herald article.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

With Katrina's Wind at Our Backs, We're Blowing Through Congress!!

by Ana Maria

With a force seemingly more powerful than that of Katrina herself, the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee passed the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007 keeping in tact the Multiple Peril Insurance Act that had recently been attached to it. In every day language, this means that the Democratically-controlled Congress just took a major step forward in protecting the 55% of Americans who live within 50 miles of the nation’s beautiful coastline. Score one for American families and businesses!


This began nearly two years ago with the insurance companies apparently devising a scheme though which to rip off Mr. and Ms. Home or Business Owners who had just been through the nightmarish Hurricane Katrina with her 22 tornadoes and winds at landfall that were at least 135 miles per hour. Katrina's winds beat down residences and businesses for up to three to four hours. Insurance companies like State Farm, Nationwide, and Allstate directed their agents that if so much as a smidgen of water were on the property to blame all the sustained damage on water.

Those directives and the subsequent documentation on how they were carried out are the foundation for the racketeering (RICO) lawsuit that the Scruggs Katrina Group filed against State Farm and its two corporate partners. [See State Farm, Partners, and RICO: What a Racket! It's another piece I did. You'll love it.]

ABC News was able to obtain a copy from State Farm files of the original FAEC [Forensic Analysis & Engineering Corp.] damage report, which included the image of an attached "Post-it" note that read, "Put in wind file - do not pay bill - do not discuss"

Image at ABC's The Blotter.

The agents for the federal government’s flood insurance program were the very same agents for State Farm, Nationwide, and Allstate and the like. Insurance companies handed down their directives: Do the paper work shuffle, leave your conscience at the door that Katrina blew away, and deliver the bad news to Mr. and Ms Home or Business Owners.

Routinely, the news went something like this.

Mr. and Ms. Homeowner, your wind policy on your homeowner’s insurance won’t pay for any damage. We want to keep to ourselves the $108 billion in profits our industry will make in 2005 and 2006. We have faith that you’ll be ok in spite of our reckless, selfish, irresponsible behavior. We’re greedy bastards who show up religiously at church. We’ll be praying for ya! Do I hear an amen! God bless.

Well, we have been blessed. We have Gulf Coast Representative Gene Taylor (D-MS), a heroic congressman who lost everything in Katrina, whose insurance company screwed over him and his family with failing to pay a penny before resorting to a lawsuit, whose own constituents were experiencing the same level of anguish that he and his family were experiencing.

We are blessed because Congressman Gene Taylor pulled out from the depths of his soul an indefatigable strength to carry on personally and professionally to champion this cause to ensure that America’s families and businesses all over the country never again are exposed to the ravages of corporate greed that has become so apparent in our nation’s insurance industry. To that I say Amen!

President Bill Clinton said something along these lines, “There isn’t anything wrong with America that can’t be made better by what’s right with America.” What is happening with this insurance reform bill is a fantastic example of Clinton’s wise words.

We are blessed because down here in Katrina Land, we reflect the rich tapestry that makes our nation envied the world over. We are of African, European, and Asian descent. We come from Central and South America. Our music is lively and soulful. Our food is hot, strong, and spicy. Our determination to persevere is strong.

To achieve the justice that every home and business owner in America requires in the aftermath of a natural disaster will require that all of us remain determined to persevere through the laborious and slow legislative process that is our form our government.

We can achieve this. The first step is to believe we deserve it. We do deserve it, and now we must embrace that very idea. The second is to believe that it is possible. We have proof that it is. The vote in subcommittee last week—along party lines, I might add, and the vote yesterday—again along party lines with a few conscientious Republicans joining the leadership of every Democrat on the committee. We have achieved step two.

The next step is to take concerted steps in the direction of this legislative dream. You know what that means! It’s political hell raising time. Woohoo! The very next vote will be in the entire chamber of the House of Representatives. It could be as soon as next week before the congress breaks for its August recess. We can say that to achieve our political dreams, we must engage in a bit of political hell raising. What fun!

In the aftermath of Katrina, with the malice of forethought the insurance industry engaged in deceptive practices intent to steal from American home and business owners the benefits that they had paid to have. Through our own political hell raising, we can end the deceptive financial charade of the insurance industry.

We must contact our own congressional representatives and let him or her know that we support the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007 ESPECIALLY because it includes the Multiple Peril Insurance Act which protects America’s families and businesses.

Sharing our perspective on this critical matter is how we protect our families through expanding the flood insurance program to include wind coverage. Sharing our perspective is how we put a gust of powerful wind under our political sails—and sail into the next round of legislative victories for ourselves, our families, and our businesses.

[Here are political hell raising email and phone activities.]

If you enjoyed this, you may also wish to read . . .
Bookies, Pimps, and Insurance Companies.
Commercial insurance rates will crush small businesses

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

TAYLOR'S CRUSADE WINS ONE

Flood program expansion approved by House panel

By MARIA RECIO
SUN HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The House Financial Services Committee voted Thursday to make a dramatic change in federal disaster insurance by expanding the national flood insurance program to cover wind damage.

The 38-29 vote, largely along party lines, in favor of the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007 was spurred by a pledge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made after Hurricane Katrina to the coastal communities of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Pelosi will lead a bipartisan delegation to the region in mid-August before the second anniversary of the hurricane, appearing at Bay St. Louis' Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church on Aug. 13.

The vote is a personal victory for Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, who lost his home in Katrina. Taylor has made it a crusade to explain to members how the current system creates a shortfall with private insurance companies covering wind damage and the federal government covering water, resulting in a bias by insurers who administer the flood program to label all damage "water."

"This really helps people in all coastal areas," said Taylor, noting residents in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Maine and New York would be able to purchase the expanded coverage, as well as in his home state of Mississippi. "Fifty percent of all Americans live in coastal areas."

Under the committee-approved bill, policyholders of the flood insurance program would be able to purchase wind insurance policies as well. The policies would not be available for those seeking exclusively wind coverage.

The multiple-peril residential policy limit would be set at $500,000 for the structure and $150,000 for contents. The bill increases the maximum coverage for flood insurance policies from $250,000 to $335,000 for residences.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said the expanded program would pay for itself through actuarially determined premiums. "What does it cost (taxpayers)? Nothing," said Frank. "It is revenue neutral." He said the bill was necessary because "in the Gulf situation, it was difficult to tell, if not impossible, wind damage."

The legislation encountered stiff resistance from Republicans who said it exposed the federal government to steep liability at a time when the insurance fund was essentially bankrupt. Insurers and consumer groups are opposed to the expansion, warning losses will dramatically increase as claims rise.

"I am not ready to support shifting the burden of wind damage to a plan that is nearly $18 billion in the red," said Rep. Spencer Bacchus, R-Ala., the committee's ranking Republican. The flood insurance program had to borrow $17.5 billion more than it took in because of Katrina-Rita claims.

The legislation makes reforms in the program, increases premiums, phases out subsidized rates paid by vacation-home owners and raises the borrowing authority.

Republican members offered several amendments stripping or delaying the wind provision from the bill, but they were defeated. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Ill., who opposed the addition of wind coverage until Congress studies the issue further, complained the controversy could sink the legislation.

"This is really adding a poison pill to flood insurance reform bill," said Biggert. Frank acknowledged the bill was controversial but said it would be ready for a floor vote in September.
Taylor predicted the bill would pass on the House floor and hopes in the Senate he can turn to Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., who also lost his home to Katrina
Democrats, led by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., chair of the panel's housing and community opportunity subcommittee, recently attached the language from Taylor's bill on "multiple perils" to the flood insurance reauthorization bill.

But Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, questioned whether the plan would stay budget-neutral. "I know from experience that these designs don't always work out the way they're supposed to." He said, "I'm still not convinced the private insurance market won't work."

Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., countered that the post-Katrina insurance response "was a massive failure of the private sector. There are still people down there who haven't been paid."

Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007 Here are the key features of H.R. 3121:

• Increases the amount FEMA can raise policy rates in any given year from 10 percent to 15 percent.
• Extends multiple-peril policies for wind damage where local governments agree to adopt and enforce building codes and standards designed to minimize wind damage.
• Allows any community participating in the flood insurance program to opt in to the multiple-peril option. The multiple-peril residential-policy limit is $500,000 for the structure and $150,000 for contents. Nonresidential properties could be covered to $1 million for structure and $750,000 for contents and business interruption.
• Increases the maximum coverage limits for flood insurance policies. New coverage limits would be $335,000 for residences, $135,000 for residential contents, and $670,000 for businesses and churches.
• Phases in actuarial rates for vacation homes and nonresidential properties beginning Jan. 1, 2011.

HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE

Original article at Sun Herald published July 27, 2007.



Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Fake Emergency Management . . . Again

Rows of trailers for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina line the Renaissance Village trailer park in Baker, La. Trailers like these have been found to contain high levels of formaldehyde.

(By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)

by Ana Maria

Bush's FEMA, the agency responsible for handling disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, has itself been disastrous. As catastrophic as Katrina’s damage has been for everyone from New Orleans through the Mississippi Gulf Coast to Alabama, nothing—and I mean nothing—comes close to the catastrophe that Bush’s FEMA embodies in terms of its deliberate neglect, callous disregard, and compassionless actions toward those whom Katrina impacted.

After being publicly castigated for deliberately ignoring reports regarding the enormous toxic levels of formaldehyde inside the trailers that house Katrina’s survivors, the Bush Administration’s latest chief FEMA buffoon has announced that the agency would—finally—begin testing the trailers.

The agency’s own on-the-ground reports had long ago informed FEMA’s upper management that the trailers were causing significant health problems. In fact, the agency’s attorneys have known since early 2006 that these sardine can sized trailers were toxic to the degree of being 75 times the healthy level. From the onset, on-the-ground FEMA employees pushed for testing. So, what directive came down from one of the attorneys with Bush’s FEMA?

"Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."

This FEMA attorney apparently missed the part of law school that would have informed him that being told of the problem automatically put him on notice. At that point, he should have acted. Period. It’s like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube. It’s doesn’t work. You cannot un-ring the bell, bucko.

The “reasonable man theory” might apply to the situation. What would a reasonable man or woman do under these circumstances? Now, the word to focus on is reasonable as most of us would agree upon its meaning.

A reasonable individual could conclude the following.

1. The trailers may be posing health risks to the families living in them.
2. FEMA’s responsible for protecting the health and welfare of these families.
3. FEMA should quickly provide appropriate and rigorous tests to determine the extent to which formaldehyde levels exist in the trailers.
4. Once the tests confirmed the toxic levels of formaldehyde, FEMA must immediately determine the remedy for the situation including providing alternative housing that would be safe and healthy.

So what would a reasonable man or woman do as a result of these conclusions? Test the trailers with the best testing equipment and personnel available. After all, the health and safety of those living in the trailers is paramount.

Instead, FEMA’s upper management told its on-the-ground employees to turn a blind eye to the unnecessary suffering of these families living in the formaldehyde-filled trailers within the Katrina-ravaged region.

The Washington Post reported

A trail of e-mails obtained by investigators shows that the agency's lawyers rejected a proposal for systematic testing of the levels of potentially cancer-causing formaldehyde gas in the trailers, out of concern that the agency would be legally liable for any hazards or health problems. As many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects.

How utterly irresponsible, compassionless, vile and contemptible Bush’s FEMA continues to be.

FEMA Resentfully Relents
Only after being verbally lashed at a very public congressional hearing last Thursday did FEMA’s leadership announce it had capitulated to the demands that it live up to its responsibilities. This, too, appears to be a continuation of the administration’s PR scam.

From the new flyer it is providing the residents living in the formaldehyde-filled trailers to the false and misleading information on its website, FEMA exhibits a vile contempt for us, the American people.

With great interest did I read FEMA’s new flyer. In keeping with the deceptive PR practices so prevalent with the Bush crew, this flyer is exceedingly misleading. First they try to pretend that formaldehyde is as common as oxygen and then to blame on dust, mold, or smoke the symptoms toxic levels of formaldehyde can produce.

“Formaldehyde is a common indoor air pollutant that can be found in nearly all homes and buildings.”

“. . . your symptoms could be from indoor pollutants that may include formaldehyde or other indoor pollutants, such as dust, mold or smoke. ”

If the Bush Administration were serious about rectifying this situation, if it were serious about accurately educating the American public about the potentially hazardous nature of the government-provided housing, then it would provide clear and convincing language to instruct these residents to seek medical treatment immediately.

But, the Bushies are not serious about anything other than lining their own pockets and, with government sweet heart deals, the pockets of their big wig friends.

Abroad, the Bush Administration hands out multi-billion dollar, no bid contracts to companies like Cheney’s Halliburton. Here at home, Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) exposed the Katrina fraud involving Bush supporter Riley Bechtel who received “$16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Purvis, Miss., down to the Gulf Coast, hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap, and plug it in. $16,000.”

Who this administration hurts with its price gouging, deceptive practices, and elimination of our governmental infrastructure is irrelevant to them. The Bushies cloak themselves in Old Glory and hide behind language central to the Christian faith as they fake being men and women who receive special delivery messages from heaven. Oh, I’m sure they get messages. However, I’m equally certain that they have grossly misinterpreted those messages.

Yep, the Bushies fake a lot of things like patriotism and religiosity. Now, the Bush Administration is faking any appearance of a serious mea culpa on the part of FEMA’s deliberate – what was that phrase the Democratic Congressional Committee Chair used? Ahhh, yes! Chairman Waxman termed it “premeditated ignorance.”

FEMA’s Website: A Portal of False and Misleading Information
FEMA’s website is riddled with false, inaccurate, and deceptive language with regard to formaldehyde-filled FEMA trailers. As a result, the information on FEMA’s website misleads the American public. Let’s look at three examples which highlight FEMA Director Paulison’s failure to ensure that all deceptive pieces of information regarding his agency’s formaldehyde-filled trailers were taken down.

Example 1
On FEMA’s homepage under “FEMA Continues To Address Formaldehyde Concerns” the following sentence remains.

“Although tests of air samples from travel trailers in the Gulf Coast have demonstrated that ventilating the units is effective in reducing levels of formaldehyde.”

Of course, FEMA fails to tell the WHOLE truth of their pitiful previous “air samples”. Last week, TIME Magazine reported on the pitifully pathetic way that the Bush folks conducted its “tests.”

“Trailers were left with windows ajar, air conditioning on and all vents open for days before interior air levels were tested for the gas — conditions that did not nearly approximate actual living conditions.”

Example 2
On FEMA’s website, Paulison has left intact deviously misleading information on the health hazards of formaldehyde as well as its remedy. In its set of frequently asked questions (FAQ) titled FEMA Actions to Minimize Formaldehyde in Travel Trailers, FEMA’s questions #2 and #3 are of particular note.

2. I thought FEMA had already done a travel trailer study.

Yes. Last summer the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agency for Toxic Substances and the CDC’s Disease Registry testing of air samples from travel trailers. That study showed that ventilating the units is effective in reducing levels of formaldehyde. However, FEMA believes additional research is needed to address
concerns about the health effects of living in travel trailers for prolonged periods of time. [Emphasis added.]

What?! The so-called study was no study at all, and the conclusions based on it are ready for prime time amateur hour! The fact of the matter is that the Clarion-Ledger, the daily paper in Jackson, Miss., which is the capitol of the state, reported "Becky Gillette, vice chairwoman of the Mississippi chapter of the Sierra Club, said testing of some FEMA trailers and mobile homes showed elevated levels of formaldehyde, even in those that have been aired out for months.” [Emphasis added.]

The answer to FEMA’s question #3 blames the residents for creating the toxic formaldehyde levels that are 75 times the healthy level.

3. What will the new study do?

The study will involve testing actual air quality conditions in travel trailers when they are used for longer periods of time under real-life conditions. In the study conducted last, the testing was done in new, unoccupied trailers so that we could determine formaldehyde levels in the units themselves, excluding any changes related to activities by the occupants, such as smoking.

Smoking causes formaldehyde to jump to 75 times the healthy level? Again, Bush’s FEMA folks are prime time for amateur hour. Get them off the government payroll!

Example 3
On FEMA’s website is a piece titled Statement On Travel Trailers and Formaldehyde. In it, Bush’s agency retains more reality-free material through which to mislead the American public seeking factually-based information.

Our investigation of formaldehyde and travel trailers indicates that ventilating the units can significantly reduce levels of formaldehyde emissions.

The Sierra Club’s testing disputes the Bush Administration’s assertion.

Once again, Bush’s government betrays our trust and jeopardizes our health and welfare. So what can we do about this situation?

Today’s Political Hell Raising Activity has us contact FEMA Director Paulison’s office to demand the removal of all the false and misleading information regarding the agency’s formaldehyde-filled trailers. Let’s bombard his office with calls so much so that we interrupt their routine.

That is our point. To interrupt their routine of deception, deviousness, and callous disregard for the health and safety of the families living in the FEMA trailers.

Our point is to call the director's office and tell the FEMA staff member at the other end of the call that we want the government website that our tax dollars pay for to be based upon reality and not someone’s fantasy.

While FEMA’s upper management is faking emergency management . . . again, we can demonstrate that we’re fully engaged citizens who will take out 3-5 minutes to live up to our end of the democratic bargain that is the great American experiment in representative democracy. Nothing fake about that. All very real.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Important Development on the Multiple Peril Insurance Bill

[A.M. in the Morning Note: This is fabulous news! Wonderful! Magnificent! The following comes directly off of Congressman Gene Taylor's homepage. Good job, Congressman Taylor. A BIG thanks to the Democratic leadership of Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA). Thanks also to Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA). ]

The text of H.R. 920, Representative Taylor's Multiple Peril Insurance Bill, has been added to H.R. 1682, the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act. The new bill is numbered H.R. 3121, and also called the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act. The Text of H.R. 920 is in Section 7 of the new bill.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Housing Subcommittee, introduced the package as a new bill with Gene Taylor, Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Al Green (D-TX), and Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, as original co-sponsors.

Representative Taylor is urging the Financial Services Committee to vote on H.R. 3121 before the August recess.

The flood insurance reform provisions from H.R. 1682 are carried over from a bipartisan flood insurance reform bill that passed the House last year by a vote of 416 to 4, so there should be no controversy with any of its provisions. It did not become law last year because the Senate never voted on its version of the bill.

CLICK HERE for a copy of the text of H.R. 3121, it is not available online yet.

Letters of Support for H.R. 920, the Multi Peril Insurance Program Act

Rep. Taylor's letter to Governor Racicot regarding his analysis of H.R. 920, the Multi Peril Insurance Program Act

H.R. 920, the Multi Peril Insurance Program Act, Frequently Asked Questions

H.R. 920, Multi Peril Insurance Program Act letter of support from Senator Trent Lott

H.R. 920, Multi Peril Insurance Program Act Allstate letter of support

H.R. 920, Multi Peril Insurance Program Act Nationwide letter of support

H.R. 920, Multi Peril Insurance Program Act Governor Haley Barbour letter of support

H.R. 920, Multi Peril Insurance Program Act Gulf Coast Business Council letter of support

Gene's Statement on Immigration Reform

Gene’s Recent Committee Hearing Testimony

Legislative Fixes for Lingering Problems of Katrina Recovery
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management
of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
May 10, 2007

Perspectives on Natural Disaster Insurance
Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity on the Financial Services Committee
March 27, 2007

Insurance Claims Payment Processes on the Gulf Coast
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Financial Services Committee
February 28, 2007

Evidence of Insurance Fraud Submitted to the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee


To see a full list of Representative Taylor's Katrina documents, CLICK HERE



Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Insurance: Catastrophic coverage the answer?

July 20, 2007

Fourth District U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor may have an answer for providing affordable coverage for Mississippi Gulf Coast residents and businesses.

His bill, HR 920, to expand federal flood insurance to include wind damage was the subject of three hours of debate before a congressional subcommittee Tuesday and, despite vehement opposition by the insurance industry, seemed to win support.

His Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007 received a boost by a letter sent to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity by Gov. Haley Barbour in support of the bill.

"Hurricane Katrina demonstrated holes in the private insurance market and the National Flood Insurance Program and I support Congress considering legislation which would create a new program in the National Flood Insurance Program to enable the purchase of wind and flood risk in one policy," Barbour's letter said.

Calling it "a failed system," Barbour said the Coast's recovery has suffered because private wind coverage is scarce and premiums in the state's insurance of last resort, the wind pool, or Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association, have skyrocketed.

As shown by The Clarion-Ledger's May report "Rebuilding the Coast," until insurance issues are solved, recovery will lag.

Gov. Barbour's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal in its report, After Katrina: Building Back Better Than Ever (www.governorscommission.com), offered a tremendous blueprint in the wake of the storm. But efforts have been stymied by the lack of available and affordable insurance.

"Greed is the main disconnect in this situation," said Taylor, according to the Gulfport/Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper.

"It's easy for them to walk around in their Gucci suits and defend their companies, but the reality is down there on the Gulf Coast, where all of the destroyed homes and property of my constituents are," Taylor said. "Of course, these companies don't want to change the rules that are currently in their favor."

A vote by the subcommittee on the bill to move it to the full House could come before the August recess.

Posters in clarionledger.com's StoryChat Mississippi Insurance Forum are already debating the potential effects of such a bill.

Said one: "Haley has been right on the money for every key Coast issue and we need to encourage him to help get HR 920 passed. If it passes, the Coast will boom and Mississippi will never be last again."

Original article at Clarion-Ledger.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Insurers Screw Consumers: Democratic Congress Fights to Protect Us

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., listens to opening remarks on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday during a hearing of the House Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee, as they consider the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007. Sun Herald

by Ana Maria

"Greed is the main disconnect in this situation," said Taylor, D-Miss. "It's easy for them to walk around in their Gucci suits and defend their companies, but the reality is down there on the Gulf Coast, where all of the destroyed homes and property of my constituents are. Of course, these companies don't want to change the rules that are currently in their favor.

"People who played by the rules and expected insurance companies to play by the same rules got screwed," said Taylor, whose bill would create financially sound premium levels to make the NFIP self-supporting.

Taylor, insurers lock horns over bill
Sun Herald
July 18, 2007

Toward the end of the subcommittee hearing on the Multiple Peril Insurance Act that Congress held the other day, the chairwoman of the committee, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif, “chastised the insurance industry representatives for criticizing Taylor's plan without offering a solution to reform the NFIP to add wind damage protection.”

As mentioned in yesterday’s piece, Democrats Shame, Skewer Insurance Shills, the corporate shills all sang from the same song sheet. Their tune? “All we are saying, is keep things the same” with this thrown in for variety’s sake “All we are saying is keep our profits the same.”

One of those verses was “state sponsored mediation.” Of course, they would want that. They have all the marbles in their corner. The insurance company writes the policy. We have to have insurance for loans to build homes and businesses. Then, here in Mississippi, the insurance companies own the Insurance Commissioner George Dale who said Katrina “put an undue burden on the insurance companies.”

Fortunately, Dale is up to be booted out of office in the primary on August 7th. [Read about Gary Anderson, the real Democratic candidate for insurance commissioner.]

Think about it. What negotiating power do we have as consumers? We can go from one insurance company to another to price shop or look for various coverage options. However, we do not negotiate the coverage itself. It’s a take it or leave it proposition. We have no right or vehicle to negotiate terms or coverage. As a result, the entire insurance industry has us over a barrel. I believe the legal term for this is “inherent power”, and courts have ruled that it is illegal for them to act in bad faith because of it. Essentially, we are at the mercy of insurance companies.

In the recent racketeering lawsuit that the Scruggs Katrina Group filed against State Farm, Forensic Analysis & Engineering Corp., and E.A. Renfroe & Company, Inc., we learn that State Farm allegedly participated in “mock mediation” meetings where they rehearsed concealing the existence of the engineering reports that said wind damaged the policyholders homes. SKG alleges that State Farm attorneys provided the script for the mediation for which “the purpose and aim . . . was to demoralize policyholders and create the impression that no degree of forensic evidence would convince State Farm and/or Renfroe to pay the full value of their insured hurricane damages.” Yeah, that sure sounds quite neighborly to me. More like the neighbor from hell.

During the course of the negotiations that Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Dale pushed, State Farm and their partners “actively and fraudulently concealed information and prevented the plaintiffs [the consumers/policyholders] from obtaining information that could be used in their favor.”

With the deck stacked in the insurance companies’ favor and without any evidence of any kind of moral fiber in the being of the captains of or mouthpieces for this industry, of course, they would recommend that the state legally mandate mediation. You and I are standing before them naked as jay birds without any armor to protect our homes, families, businesses, employees or customers. They get their fat corporate bonuses and we get . . . what was that word that Congressman Gene Taylor used? Oh yeah, “screwed.”

Taylor had an additional few choice words for the six corporate shills who advocated maintaining the status quo.

“I want to tell each of you today to defend this [holding up a photo of a home that had $600,000 worth of insurance and got not one penny from their wind insurance policy], to defend those profits [$40 billion in 2005, the year of Katrina and over $60 billion in 2006] to defend the practice where they can call each other up and say “Let’s all raise our rates. You take this state. You take that one. Or even better, let’s all back out for a little while. And then we’ll come back in, and we’ll quadruple the rates and the people will be so desperate because they know hurricane season’s right around the corner, they’ll pay us anything.”

“To say that doesn’t need to change, to say that it’s ok, well, you gotta, you gotta live with yourself. And I’m sure, quite frankly, that your financial portfolio looks a whole lot better than these guys (as Taylor picks up one of the photos of a gorgeous home that had at least a half million dollars in insurance coverage but received not one penny), but the bottom line is that it does have to change. It is not a ‘what if’. It has already happened.

“So the question is when does it happen to North Carolina? When does it happen in New York? When does it happen in New Jersey? When does it happen in Connecticut? When does it happen to Georgia? When does it happen to South Carolina? Because it’s gonna happen.. . .”

Click Here To View Archived Webcast
start at 2:36 to watch all of
Congressman Taylor’s riveting final remarks

Taylor thanked the Democratic leadership for holding five hearings on the matter since taking over in January. He said “in the 15 months after the storm, the guys that used to run this committee didn’t see fit to have one hearing on the kind of abuses that took place by the thousands in Mississippi. In the months since the Democrats have taken over, they have had five. We’ve had a promise of a vote.”

Great! Thank GAWD for Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA). Pelosi lead a 20+ Democratic Congressional delegation here to review the Katrina-ravaged areas of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. These Democratic congressional representatives attended a town meeting in my hometown of Bay St. Louis, Miss., and listened intently to a cross section of people tell their nightmare stories: Republican and Democrat, wealthy and far less than wealthy. By way of contrast, their colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not done the same.

The Sun Herald reported that Taylor “hopes to see the bill approved by the House committee and sent to the full House for a vote before the August recess.” In his final comment at the hearing, Congressman Taylor said “To sit back and to do nothing would be the greatest wrong of all.”

Taylor’s final comment is a great segue to today’s Political Hell Raising Activities. Go here to contact by email and phone the members of this subcommittee. The point of this is to ask them to vote in favor of H.R. 920, the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007. This is the way to move through the legislative process as active, thoughtful, and effective participants in our American democratic system. Think of it as an easy way to help us screw over an industry that has long abandoned and betrayed us.

Additional resources
H.R. 920
FAQ regarding the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007
Rep. Gene Taylor Asks AIA to Retract Report
Trent Lott's letter of support
The Official Hearing Website

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Saints Fans March All Over Insurance Companies

by Ana Maria

Having grown up in Saints country, I'm typical of the people in the greater New Orleans area. I love the Saints. I was never so proud as I was the day we all got to take the virtual paper bags off of our heads years back. Then, last year the Saints did the area proud by going all the way to the semi finals of the Super Bowl.

In an area completely abandoned* and left to drown in water that by midnight the day before the levees flooded the great city of New Orleans, I am ever so much more proud because on the Saints' Report akking an Forum, fellow fans are yakking and yakking about the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007 that Congressman Taylor (D-MS) has proposed. ("Yakking" is local speak for talking, chatting.) The thread is titled Congress battling with insurance industry over wind insurance policy reform. Click the link and read the thread.

We are known for our fierce loyalty to our local football team come hell or high water. This thread shows our fierce loyalty to the New Orleans--Gulf Coast region and to our country. . . and our street smarts about politics.

* The New York Times article titled White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm published February 10, 2006. Greg Palast's Big Easy to Big Empty is the Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans including the fact that Bush's White House knew that the levees were breaking and about to drown the city . . . and did not tell officials with the state of Louisiana or the city of New Orleans. To buy a copy, click on the icon on the right side of the A.M. in the Morning's home page.


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......