Barbour sides with Taylor's insurance bill

Posted on Sun Herald Wed, Jul. 18, 2007
By ANITA LEE
calee@sunherald.com

Gov. Haley Barbour, who has stayed out of the legal fray over Hurricane Katrina insurance coverage, has weighed in on the Multiple Perils Insurance Act sponsored by U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor.

Barbour sent a letter of support to the House subcommittee that held a hearing Tuesday on the bill.

"Hurricane Katrina demonstrated holes in the private insurance market and the National Flood Insurance Program," Barbour's letter said, "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 said the Coast's recovery has been hampered because wind coverage is scarce on the private market and costly to buy from the state wind pool.

The American Insurance Association questions the cost, which might be shifted to taxpayers if the flood program is expanded to include wind. Artificially low rates for flood insurance have helped mire the program in debt.

Taylor said NFIP must charge financially sound rates if wind coverage is made available.

Barbour said the state wind pool, insurer of last resort for the six Coast counties, has grown from 16,000 policies before Katrina to 40,000 today, proving wind coverage is difficult to find. The state has pumped money into the wind pool, but premiums have still increased sharply for homeowners and businesses.
Barbour's letter said, "action is needed at the federal level to ensure the long-term stability of our insurance market."

Read Barbour letter of support here.
Original Sun Herald article here.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Taylor, insurers lock horns over bill

In the end, Taylor's bill is the only viable proposal
Posted on Sun Herald Wed, Jul. 18, 2007





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.

By BRANDON PARKER
SUN HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- One by one, representatives of insurance companies lined up along a crowded testimony table Tuesday to criticize a proposal to create a federal hurricane coverage program before a House subcommittee.

But after three hours of testimony, Rep. Gene Taylor's bill to add coverage for wind damage to the federally funded National Flood Insurance Program stood as the only viable proposal for insurance reform to protect against property losses like those from Hurricane Katrina.

Taylor says that insurers overcharged the NFIP for the property claims submitted by Gulf Coast residents after Katrina. Damage caused by flooding is covered by the NFIP, whereas insurers must cover wind damage under homeowners' policies. Taylor maintains that many companies took advantage of the NFIP, leading to the program's $17.5 billion deficit.

"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.

But insurance industry representatives raised red flags about the costs of the proposal.

Ted Majewski, who represented the American Insurance Association, noted a company analysis that concluded Taylor's bill could increase the NFIP deficits by up to $200 billion in one year.

Furthermore, said Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, the artificially low government coverage rates would encourage development in flood- and wind-prone areas by homeowners, who typically have insufficient catastrophe insurance.

He also pointed out that fewer than 20 percent of South Mississippi homeowners had flood insurance prior to Katrina and questioned whether homeowners would participate in the bill's voluntary federal program for wind and flood damage protection.

"The proposal's actuarially sound rates still do not address the lack of flood coverage penetration," said Hartwig. "It's not what will happen to the private sector, but what will happen to citizens and their taxpayer money."

Despite the concerns voiced by industry representatives Tuesday, Allstate and Nationwide insurance companies have sent letters to Congress calling for an expansion of the federal government's role in catastrophe insurance.

And the chairwoman of the committee, Rep. Maxine Water, 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.

Taylor hopes to see the bill approved by the House committee and sent to the full House for a vote before the August recess.

Original Sun Herald article here.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Democrats Shame, Skewer Insurance Shills

by Ana Maria

Eloquent, down home as well as brutally truthful and direct in a classy manner, Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) shamed 6 witnesses who testified at the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee hearing on Housing and Community Opportunity. Each of these witnesses asserted that from the perspective of the insurance industry, the status quo was good enough. One after the other with painful repetition in this four hour subcommittee meeting that I watched online, each of these corporate shills reiterated the same talking points with a single goal in mind: protect the status quo.

I couldn’t have been more proud of Congressman Taylor’s performance if I myself had personally verbally skewered each of those shills. But I sure as hell would love the opportunity, and I guarantee you that I would not necessarily be nearly as nice or classy about the matter. Over and over again, these shills said the same industry-produced talking points.

1. The Federal Government would loose money if it got into the business of covering all natural perils.


2. The private market can take care of consumers.


3. The Federal Flood Insurance Program should be allowed to do its job.

Of course, the whole lot of them operate in a fact-free bubble which attracts those with similar inclination.

For the majority of the country that comprise the rest of us, we live in a factually-based reality in which fairness and protecting families play an important role in our core values. We believe in fiscal sanity and financial security for our families, our businesses and our country. And that is clearly the primary goal that the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007 achieves.

Region-wide, private companies took premiums from families and businesses then deliberately instructed its agents not to pay on the wind policies. That’s called stealing. When the companies deliberately sent erroneous bills to the Federal Flood Insurance Program—bills for which they had engineering reports that specifically stated wind caused the damage, these companies defrauded the U.S. Treasury thus stealing from the American taxpayers through an inflated $23 billion bill.

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.

In so doing, the private insurance companies have betrayed American families and business owners. These are the values of the Bush White House. However, betrayal and theft are not mainstream American values.

The corporate shills who testified before this Congressional subcommittee had one message: keep the status quo. Basically, these corporate shills testified that insurance companies should be allowed to continue to steal from American families, businesses, and taxpayers. It’s good for their bottom lines, good for their businesses. The testimony that these shills provided merely protected the industry’s $108 billion in profits earned in 2005 and 2006. They had no concern for the very real impact that their corporate thievery had on Americans.

Does any compassionate and sane individual really believe that these obscene profits at the expense of fiscal obligations to those whom the companies promised financial security are not blood-drenched profits? These shills, these men and women who testified are compassionless corporate cronies. Yes, even the FEMA dude recited the same talking points which surely to goodness came from Bush’s buddies in the insurance industry.

Last week, former GOP Chair Marc Racicot, who now heads the American Insurance Association, sent to Congress and the media a fraudulent report with the same messages embedded in its reality-free rambling. Bush appointed Racicot to head the Republican Party in 2001. Racicot chaired the party while remaining an active lobbyist for Enron.

One after the other, in calm and deliberate fashion, Democratic Congressional members skewered those six panelists. Many of these subcommittee members drove home the reality that insurance companies cheated lower and middle income families out of their rightful claims on their homeowner wind policy provisions. These Democratic congressional members talked of families and business owners who had to hire attorneys and engineering firms to fight their insurance companies for claims that should have been paid within months after the hurricane had hit the area.

Today, many of these businesses are not up and running. Many of these families remain living in FEMA trailers or with other family and friends both inside and outside of the region. Is this the American Dream we want everyone to embrace? Cheat and be rewarded? As Taylor said, his constituents played by the rules and got screwed by the insurance companies.

The reality is that insurance companies betrayed their policyholders. The reality is that insurance companies are jacking up their premiums by god awful amounts or abandoning homeowners throughout the country from the Mid-West like Oklahoma or the West, East, and Gulf Coasts.

Look, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, 55% of us live within 50 miles of the nation’s coastline. These towns and cities are where we live, worship, educate our kids, visit with family and friends, and work. Other than the corrupt Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale, who would suggest that over half of the U.S. population ought to move inland?

The enormous impact from Hurricane Katrina should leave Mississippians wondering if they should live "in harm's way."

With insurance companies failing to protect the financial stability of our families and businesses—and insurance commissioners like Dale helping companies to rip us off blindly, we have turned to the federal government to protect us through expanding the government’s federal flood insurance policy to include wind damage. Indeed, some of the subcommittee members suggested that the new legislation should also include earthquakes and fire both of which are continual threats.

Of its own choosing, the market driven insurance industry has failed to protect us.

The era of insanity of profits over people and of financial greed over family financial security is coming to an end. We will beat the drum until we have enough votes in the House and Senate to pass this bill because we must protect America’s fiscal sanity, fiscal stability for our families and businesses.

If Bush vetoes the legislation, then we will again pass this legislation under an expanded Democratic majority after the 2008 election. Then the newly inaugurated Democratic President will sign this legislation, perhaps as part of a legislative package titled something along the lines of Protecting American Families Financial Security.

That is the point of the legislation. Protecting families, protecting businesses.

Additional resources

1. H.R. 920


2. FAQ regarding the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007


3. Rep. Gene Taylor Asks AIA to Retract Report


4. Trent Lott's letter of support

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Report: Gulf’s ‘dead zone’ growing

Researchers predict phenomenon will be worst in at least 22 years
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:41 a.m. CT July 17, 2007

NEW ORLEANS - Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted “dead zone” off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles — its largest in at least 22 years. Read the MSNBC story.


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Leaning On Insurers

Michael Homan's house has been dangerously off-kilter since Hurricane Katrina, but his insurance company has left him twisting in the wind. So he's fighting back.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
By Rebecca Mowbray

Standing in Michael Homan's Mid-City home brings about a slightly queasy feeling of vertigo.

Floors slope sharply to the left, doors quickly slam shut under the pull of gravity and boards that should be at right angles aren't.

The house has been leaning dangerously since Hurricane Katrina, when the Xavier University theology professor felt the house twisting in the wind like a boat in rough seas before one strong gust sent it lurching to the left.

"During the storm it was windy, windy, windy and all of a sudden it got hammered in these big gusts," said Homan, who escaped with his two dogs and the help of some firefighters from Phoenix. He walked most of the way to LaPlace after the levee breaches filled his elevated home with about 3 feet of water.

Homan and his wife Therese Fitzpatrick, a public school teacher, should have been able to repair their home and move on with their lives because they had flood insurance and homeowners insurance on their 215 S. Alexander St. home.

Instead, they're living down the street while two enormous braces prop up their empty home to keep it from falling over. They have filed for Road Home grant money and are suing Allstate Insurance Co. for paying them only $3,944.73 on their homeowners insurance claim for wind damage that they say will cost tens of thousands of dollars to fix. Their house has been deemed a total loss.

"They just nickel and dimed us to death," Homan said. "Our problem was the structural damage. It would have been so easy for them in the beginning to have maxed out the policy."

As the Road Home grant program confronts a $5 billion shortfall, the line of applicants includes people like the Homan-Fitzpatricks, who had insurance to cover most of the Katrina repair bills but found themselves with uncompensated wind damage that has delayed the region's recovery.

Walter Leger, head of the housing and redevelopment task force at the Louisiana Recovery Authority, says he has no idea how many people who were insured but unable to collect on their policies ended up in line for the Road Home program, but he suspects that the Homan-Fitzpatricks are not alone.

"I think there's probably quite a few. They probably are deterred by the fact that to really fight your insurance company, you have to have an attorney. That probably hinders a lot of people," said Leger, a lawyer.

Leger said it's probably easier for people to sign up for the Road Home than to battle their insurance companies, especially since the amount is often only a few tens of thousands of dollars. "The insurance company's job is to give you as little as they can."

The Washington, D.C., nonprofit Taxpayers Against Fraud, said it sounds like the Road Home program is as much a public subsidy to the insurance industry as it is a program to help disaster victims.

"Right now the Road Home program sounds to me like it's being used as an enabler for companies shirking their responsibility and ripping off taxpayers," said Patrick Burns, communications director for the group. "This is a situation in which the system is set up to transfer the liability to the federal government while transferring the profit to the company."

Skinny kitchen

Homan is generally satisfied with the $73,000 he got in flood insurance for his home. He's got his quibbles, such as a few appliances missing from the estimate and his kitchen being measured as an impossibly skinny 2.5 feet wide, but by and large he feels as though the money from the federal flood insurance program will be sufficient to fix his flood damage.

But the homeowners insurance claim with Allstate is a different story. About 10 adjusters visited the house as Homan believes that the Northbrook, Ill., company was trying to drag out his claim and wear him down.

To Homan, the signs are fairly obvious that the slow-rising floodwaters that crept into his house in the wee morning hours the Tuesday after the storm were not the cause of the structural damage, and that the lean of the house was clearly new with the storm.

Unpainted portions of the windows and clapboards were revealed when the house shifted to the left, as the boards separated from where they had resided for most of the past century, revealing unweathered wood. The powerful Greek columns supporting the two story home's upper gallery have split lengthwise under the duress, again revealing unweathered wood. And the house next door is leaning in the same direction as Homan's.

When the team from Haag Engineering Co. finally made it to the house in February 2006 on an inspection that had been ordered in October 2005, the engineers concluded that the tilt was a pre-existing condition. "It was leaning like this before Katrina, is what they're saying," Homan said.

Haag didn't really want to talk with them and was at the property for less than 15 minutes. Homan said he got the feeling the engineers' minds were made up before they arrived. "We knew something was up. They didn't want to talk to us. They were just here for a few minutes," Homan said.

Because the house was at such a lean that he couldn't shut and lock the front door, at some point after the storm, Homan cut a triangle off the bottom of the front door and attached it to the opposite corner of the top of the door to make it fit. When the Haag engineers saw the oddly shaped door, they pointed to it as proof of their conclusion that the damage was long-standing.

"They said, 'Aha. The house was leaning before the storm,' " Homan said. "They ignored all this other evidence."

When Homan finally got the engineering report several months later, it referred to the "Wilson" house and had a picture of someone else's home.

Allstate declined comment on Homan's situation and the Road Home.

"We don't typically discuss individual customer situations," Allstate spokeswoman Kate Hollcraft said. "Allstate has already settled 98 percent of our Katrina-related claims in Louisiana. Each case is considered individually based on the facts and information presented. We continue to work with our customers to resolve any remaining claims."

David Margulies, a spokesman for Haag Engineering, said his company was unaware of any problem with the engineering report of Homan's house.

"Haag is not familiar with this particular individual, but if someone brings an issue to our attention, we will research it and address it," Margulies said.

Sending a signal

Because they needed money to repair and couldn't afford to wait for Allstate, Homan and his family decided to apply to the Road Home program to make up for what Allstate won't pay.

Homan and his family recently were awarded $150,000 from the Road Home: $30,000 to elevate, because their property missed qualifying for ICC by a few inches, and $120,000 for structure damage that was unpaid by insurance.

Despite the Road Home award, Homan and Fitzpatrick are not withdrawing their insurance lawsuit because they feel it's important to send a signal to insurance companies that they need to pay the people who bought policies from them.

"We'd be much happier if they paid our bills instead of taxpayers," Homan said. "I just feel that they've behaved unethically through the whole process. We also have nothing to lose, so we might be their worst enemy."

Burns' group tracks whistleblower lawsuits such as the New Orleans suit unsealed in May that alleges that insurance companies systematically overbilled the federal flood program for hurricane damage while underpaying wind claims. He says the best way for the federal government to help hurricane victims is not to provide rebuilding grants to people who haven't tapped out their insurance, but rather to throw its weight behind a few strong insurance cases against each company to send a message to private industry that the government cares whether it pays its obligations.

"This is a case where government can help, but maybe the best way for government to help isn't to write a check, it's to send a lawyer and a legal brief," Burns said.

Homan and his family applied to the Road Home program because they couldn't wait any longer on Allstate and because the program allows them to recover legal fees for pursuing the company.

Burns applauded Homan and Fitzpatrick for continuing their insurance claim on behalf of others even as their own rebuilding needs have now been addressed.

"He has the immediate need of taking care of this family, and he also has this larger sense of community and national pride. He knows what is right for his family now is wrong for his family over time. My hat's off to him," Burns said. "Will the government please help this man?"

Holding up the money

The Homans' decision to pursue Allstate is also a relief to Louisiana Recovery Authority.

"Good for him," Leger said. "We're all fighting to get more money from Washington. If you assume that his claim is legitimate, the insurance company is holding up Road Home money that could help someone else."

When people get Road Home money, they agree to assign any future insurance benefits to the state of Louisiana, which also reserves the right to pursue insurance claims. Leger said Louisiana Recovery Authority has had several meetings with the attorney general's office about pursuing those claims.

Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for state Attorney General Charles Foti, said that key people were out of town and she was unable to comment on what's happening with the Road Home and insurance.

"We are considering looking into some LRA issues. Whether they encompass what you're talking about, I couldn't say," she said.

But Leger takes issue with Taxpayers Against Fraud's charge that the Louisiana Recovery Authority should have prioritized Road Home awards to avoid subsidizing the insurance industry.

Who should have received priority? The uninsured? The elderly? Those with special needs? Those in a certain part of the state? Those below a certain income level? Or those like Homan who took care to buy insurance, but who have been unsuccessful in fighting their insurance companies? Just even identifying people in these groups would have been cumbersome, Leger said.

"I understand the sentiment, and it is a good sentiment, but deciding who gets to the line first is difficult." Leger said. "That's my point: How do you define the most needy?"

. . . . . . .

Rebecca Mowbray can be reached at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3417.


Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Today's Subcommittee Hearing on Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007

Today, Tuesday, July 17, 2007, the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity will hear testimony regarding the proposed Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007. The time is 2pm EDT. Click here to view the live webcast to view the hearing online. The page will automatically load to the hearing.

Call Committee Chair Maxine Waters to let her know how important this legislation is to protecting America's families and businesses. Below is her phone number and a phone script. Just say what is italicized, and everything will work out. I just called and read the script. The lovely woman who answered the call took the message.

Feel free to come back and post comments on this important next milestone in achieving financial security for the 55% of our nation's families and businesses who reside within 50 miles of the nation's coastlines.

Chairwoman Waters: 202-225-2201.
________________________

My name is ________________, and I’m a registered voter in (name of state).

I am calling to talk about the Multiple Perils Insurance Act—H.R 920. Specifically, I wish to express my support for this important legislation.

The bill is fiscally responsible, and America's families and businesses need it.

We're counting on Chairwoman Waters leadership to vote out this important bill from today's committee meeting.

Thank you! Have a great day!
___________________________

(Remember to smile. They can hear it on the other end of the phone. Yes, I know it sounds corny. It’s both corny AND true. So take a line out of Martina McBride's song and "do it anyway." - am)




Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Katrina +17 months: Ashton's Woodpiles

By commonscribe
(a wonderful writer on DailyKos)

I've recently returned from a week in Bay Saint Louis. These are more thoughts on what I found there.

Read this well-written and heart breaking story on Daily Kos. . . (then come back!)

Read More......

Bookies, Pimps, and Insurance Companies

by Ana Maria

The insurance industry has a great scam of a gravy train going on with home and business owners. Think about it. Collect the premiums, deliberately fail to pay out the claims, pocket the profits, leave town, reduce the coverage, increase the premiums, repeat.

Just as a bookie collects from its gamblers, these companies collect money from us, the home and business owners of America. If we never have a situation where we need to make good on our policy, the insurance company has kind of made out like a bandit. All of this is legal and above board. We understand it’s a form of legal gambling, and we know the risks of what may happen if we don’t participate.

In essence, we’re essentially betting that we may one day need to tap into our policy, our legally biding contractual agreement with our legal bookie. When something happens and we need our gamble to pay off, we expect our insurance carriers—our bookies—to make good on our legally binding agreement.

Here in the Katrina-ravaged region of the country, our bookies are skipping town with our money pointing their proverbial fingers to the water in the Gulf of Mexico. If a drop of water hit our property, then the insurance carriers said that ALL of the damage would be paid from the U.S. Government’s federal flood insurance program. Remember, the private insurance companies were adjusting claims for their own wind insurance policies and for the federal government’s flood insurance program. A conflict of interest that has become apparent in Katrina’s aftermath. [See Wind? Water? More like a Bunch of Hot Air! for more information on that end.]

Since the private insurance carriers were adjusters for the same properties and these companies lack integrity or ethics, it was easy for them to fraudulently claim that the damage was from water and to hand their own bills to the U.S. government to the tune of $23 billion. With each home and business owner claim that these companies fraudulently denied, they have betrayed our trust.

New research from the University of South Alabama’s Coastal Weather Research Center is proving that the insurance industry’s profit generating plan doesn’t hold water.

Dr. Blackwell works at the Coastal Weather Research Center.

Winds battered residents long before water came ashore. This past May, the university announced the discovery of a “Second, Devastating Eyewall Inside Hurricane Katrina”. The university’s “hurricane expert Dr. Keith Blackwell used the latest in microwave satellite technology to look inside Hurricane Katrina’s storm clouds, leading to the discovery of a second, or outer, very potent eyewall, which extended severe hurricane winds far outward from the storm’s center.

Blackwell’s research concluded the following.

1. Before landfall, Katrina was a Category 5 storm with . . . sustained winds of 175 mph.
2. The hurricane’s highest reported surface gust was 135 mph, in Poplarville, Mississippi; many weather stations were destroyed, so Katrina’s highest gusts were not measured.
3. Video evidence from storm chasers suggests gusts on the ground in Gulfport, MS, could have been as high as 150 mph.
4. The hurricane spawned 22 documented tornadoes in Mississippi and Alabama.

FACT SHEET: Double Eyewalls and Hurricane Katrina
Coastal Weather Research Center
May 17, 2007

Dr. Blackwell’s documented research concluded the following.

“Initially, high winds in the outer eyewall struck the Mississippi coast up to three to four hours before the highest water arrived. The problem with water created by the storm’s devastating tidal surge arrived later,” explained Blackwell.
[Emphasis added.]

What does this mean?
Well, Poplarville is inland by about 60 miles from Bay St. Louis, Miss., one of the tiny coastal beach towns that comprised Katrina’s ground zero. So if Katrina’s gusts were 135 mph after it had been over 60 miles of land and these massive winds were battering homes, businesses, schools, fire and police stations, and other government buildings for THREE to FOUR hours before the surge came ashore, Katrina’s winds did plenty of damage for which the private insurance companies are financially responsible. That’s what this research means.

This research takes the wind out of the insurance industry’s argument that it was the water and NOT the wind that caused the enormous damage to homes, businesses, etc.

This means that the insurance companies have defrauded the federal government possibly by many billions and billions of dollars with its failure to pay on damages that wind, and not water, caused.


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.

That’s what this research means. It’s fantastic news for home and business owners as well as schools, cities, towns, counties and other governmental entities that have been going up against the insurance industry and its reported $108 billion in profits that it made in 2005 and 2006 alone.

With this new evidence from the Coastal Weather Research Center coupled with the RICO lawsuit that the Scruggs Katrina Group has filed [See State Farm, Partners, and RICO: What a Racket!] in which it has uncovered evidence that the companies deliberately failed to pay wind policy claims it knew that it was responsible for paying, this may also mean that that policy holders with settled claims may seek out attorneys to reopen their cases. Sure would be a pity were the insurance companies to find themselves in a whole lot of hot water.

The gig is up. As this information comes out more and more, these really bad bookies—the insurance companies peddling their property and casualty insurance wares—will continue to be exposed.

Like a bookie, insurance companies are running a numbers game on its property and casualty customers—residential, commercial, government, you name it. They're scamming us. But the big pimp daddy-O is out in full force protecting them.

So why be skeptical of several insurance companie being supportive of the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007? Ever heard of a bookie willingly giving up territory? How ‘bout a pimp that lets a prostitute get out of the business and on to a more respectable profession? Yeah, me, neither.

Since the Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007 would severely cut into the insurance bookies’ ability to run this numbers game on American families and businesses, they are transforming themselves from bookies to pimps. Seeing the hand writing on the wall, the industry is taking solace in the fact that they have the big insider Daddy-O of a Pimp out there hustling inside the political trenches.

The Insurance Industry’s Big Daddy-O Pimp
In 2005, Marc Racicot, the former chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), became the president of the American Insurance Association. When George Bush named his buddy as chair of the ReTHUGlican party, Racicot continued as “an active, registered lobbyist . . . for the Houston law firm of Bracewell & Patterson, personally representing the controversial energy firm Enron.” I suppose there’s something to be said about being upfront with one’s lack of good ethics and integrity. Not much to say, of course.

When Racicot became the president of the American Insurance Association, he characterized the association as being “widely regarded as one of the most effective business advocacy groups in state capitols and in the halls of Congress.”

Today, Racicot is pimping the association’s fraudulent Towers Perin report that tells Congress that the proposed Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007 is on shaky financial ground. What a load of baloney. Their analysis is on shaky ground and when the dust settles on the court cases that are pending, I’m personally hoping the companies’ financial positions are below the ground. What they have done here in Katrina Land is sinful and criminal in every sense of those words. Do I hear an Amen?!

Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) sent a letter to Racicot requesting that he “retract and disavow the fraudulent Towers Perin report.” Taylor stated, “the assumptions, scenarios, and conclusions in the report are impossible under the bill.”

In other words, Bush’s Boy—the big Daddy-O Insurance Industry Pimp Marc Racicot—is pimping the industry’s trade association’s fraudulent information.

So here’s where we come in with today’s Political Hell Raising Activities.

On Tuesday, July 17, 2007, the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity will hear testimony regarding the proposed Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007. Below are the members of this committee. Are any of these members your congressional representative? If so contact them, inform them that you are you their constituent, and that you support the Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007.

Contact Chairwoman Waters and any of the others and inform them that you support the Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007. This hearing is an important step in the road to stopping the bookies from ripping off any other families and business owners. 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.

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

Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity
Rep. Maxine Waters (CA), Chairwoman
Rep. Nydia Velázquez (NY)
Rep. Julia Carson (IN)
Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (MA)
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO)
Rep. Al Green (TX)
Rep. William Lacy Clay (MO)
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (NY)
Rep. Gwen Moore (WI)
Rep. Albio Sires (NJ)
Rep. Keith Ellison (MN)
Rep. Charles A. Wilson (OH)
Rep. Christopher S. Murphy (CT)
Rep. Joe Donnelly (IN)
Rep. Judy Biggert (IL)
Rep. Stevan Pearce (NM)
Rep. Peter King (NY)
Rep. Paul E. Gillmor (OH)
Rep. Christopher Shays (CT)
Rep. Gary G. Miller (CA)
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (WV)
Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ)
Rep. Randy Neugebauer (TX)
Rep. Geoff Davis (KY)
Rep. John Campbell (CA)
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (MI)

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Summary of H.R. 920, the Multiple Peril Insurance Act

From the Office of Rep. Gene Taylor

Cosponsors: Maxine Waters, D-CA; Bobby Jindal, R-LA; Charlie Melancon, D-LA; Walter Jones, Jr. R-NC; William Jefferson, D-LA; Jo Bonner, R-AL; Carolyn Maloney, D-NY; Emanuel Cleaver, D-MO; Al Green, D-TX; Wm. Lacy Clay, D-MO; Edward Markey, D-MA; Lincoln Davis, D-TN; Rodney Alexander, R-LA; Donna Christensen, D-VI; Bennie Thompson, D-MS; Henry Cuellar, D-TX; Danny Davis, D-IL; Neil Abercrombie, D-HI; Jeff Miller, R-FL; Timothy Bishop, D-NY; Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-TX; Alcee Hastings, D-FL; Carolyn C. Kilpatrick, D-MI; Donald Payne, D-NJ; Corrine Brown, D-FL; Loretta Sanchez, D-CA; Steve Cohen, D-TN.

H.R. 920, the Multiple Peril Insurance Act, would create a new program in the National Flood Insurance Program to enable the purchase of wind and flood risk in one policy.

The bill requires premiums for the new optional coverage to be risk-based and actuarially sound, so that the program would be required to collect enough in premiums to pay claims.

Multiple peril policies would be available where local governments agree to adopt and enforce building codes and standards designed to minimize wind damage, in addition to the existing flood program requirements for flood plain management.

Any community participating in the flood insurance program could opt into the multiple peril option, but the greatest demand for the product will be in coastal areas that face both flood and wind risk from hurricanes and tropical storms. Insurance companies are withdrawing from coastal areas and forcing state-sponsored insurers of last resort to take on much more disaster risk.

The Multiple Peril Insurance Act would allow homeowners to buy insurance and know that their damage from both wind and water will be covered. This is primarily a concern after a hurricane where the worst destruction is caused by a combination of wind and flooding. Homeowners would not have to hire lawyers, engineers, and adjusters to determine what damage was caused by wind and what was caused by flooding.

This bill would set residential policy limits at $500,000 for the structure and $150,000 for contents and loss of use. Nonresidential properties could be covered to $1,000,000 for structure and $750,000 for contents and business interruption.

Once the program is enacted, a private insurance market should develop to offer coverage above the limits. This would allow insurance companies to design policies that would have the equivalent of a $500,000 deductible for residential properties or a $1 million deductible for nonresidential properties.

Section by Section of H.R. 920,
the Multiple Peril Insurance Act

Section 1. Short Title

“Multiple Peril Insurance Act of 2007”

Section 2. Flood and Windstorm Multi-peril Coverage

Adds a new program to the National Flood Insurance Program to enable the
purchase of insurance covering losses resulting from flood and/or windstorm;

Multi-peril coverage is available only where the local government has adopted standards designed to reduce windstorm damages; (Flood standards already required by NFIP)

No duplicate coverage with multi-peril coverage and NFIP flood coverage;

Multi-peril policy covers damage from flooding and/or windstorm without requirement to distinguish flood damage from wind damage;

Premiums must be based on risks according to accepted actuarial principles;

The Director shall issue regulations setting the terms and conditions of coverage;

Aggregate policy limits are as follows:

Residential Structures - $500,000 for single-family dwelling; $500,000 per dwelling unit for structures with more than one unit; $150,000 per unit for combination of contents and increased living expenses for loss of use;

• Nonresidential Structures - $1,000,000 for structure; $750,000 for combination of contents and business interruption coverage.

Section 3. Prohibition Against Duplicate Coverage

Adds the prohibition against duplicate coverage to the existing flood program.

Section 4. Compliance with State and Local Law

No new coverage for any property that is in violation of local building and zoning
requirements designed to reduce windstorm damages.

Section 5. Criteria for Land Management and Use

The Director shall carry out studies to determine the appropriate standards for windstorm damage prevention, and establish criteria based on those standards.

Section 6. Definitions

Windstorm is defined as any hurricane, tornado, cyclone, typhoon, or other wind event.



Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......

Beyond the 9th Ward

As I sit here in the town of Bay St. Louis, Miss., one of several tiny coastal beach towns that comprise ground zero for the worst part of the worst natural disaster in the nation, I feel conflicted. The New York Times has published a lengthy article titled Road to New Life After Katrina Is Closed to Many. The article zeroed in on the difficulty of returning home after Katrina. Again, as has been the modus operandi from the beginning, the focus is on New Orleans alone and specifically on residents in the 9th Ward. This is an important heart breaking story. And herein lies my conflict.

The road home after Katrina is equally difficult for those who don’t live in the lower 9th Ward. A few weeks ago, I attended my niece’s 13th birthday party held at Rock ‘n Bowl in New Orleans. How wonderful to see a bunch of 13 year girls so confident, delightful, and vibrant. Their parents dropped them off, stuck around a while and chatted, then left and returned to pick them up when the party ended. One of the mother’s I met was yakking with me about having to go to the laundry mat. In New Orleans, “to yak” means “to talk.” Let’s get some cross cultural adaptation going here, ok? ;) Back to the yakking itself, she was so lovely. She and her husband’s home in Lakeview had many feet of water in it after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ levees broke. Fortunately, they were able to buy a home a few blocks away that was untouched by the water.

Anyway, she was saying how awful it was for her because since the storm, she’s been having to go to the laundry mat to do the clothes. “At THIS age? Girl, you know, I didn’t work all my life to be going to a laundry mat to do my families clothes.” Oooooo. I told her that when I moved back to San Jose, California in 2002, one of my main criteria for renting was having a washer and dryer in my apartment. Period. I was not going to drag my clothes over to a laundry mat and sit there for hours waiting for a dryer, getting stuck using a dryer that hardly dried the clothes and ate up my coins like mad. And I’m only one person. I couldn’t imagine doing it for a family—mom, dad, and kids.

Now what does any of this have to do with a New York Times story about the 9th Ward and going home to New Orleans? My recent five part series focused on broadening the Katrina lens beyond it. The woman with whom I was speaking—I wish I could remember her name. It’s a terrible thing, I know, to not recall someone’s name. But, down here in the greater New Orleans area, which includes the very western part of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in particular the towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis (my home town, remember), we don’t remember names that well. Often, we’ll say something along these lines. “You remember the son of Ms Josie who is married to that beautiful woman whose sister works at the bank? Well her mamma’s good looking brother . . .” Not recalling people’s names may be the reason everyone calls everyone honey, baby, dahlin’, shuga, and sweetie.

A few years back, Bob, a boss of mine was going to New Orleans for some kind of work thing. I told him of this delightful cultural verbal habit of ours. Bob came back complaining that I had forgotten to tell him about the mosquitoes and gnats. Poor thing, his neck was raw from the bites. But, he perked up when he said that I was right. Even the big burly man behind the counter of a sandwich shop where Bob had gone for lunch called him “hon.” That’s part of the charm of the area. We don’t care if you really are good looking or ugly, fat or thin, old or young, or your race, ethnicity, or religion. If you talk with the locals, you’ll be called one of the terms named above.

Now where was I on that laundry mat story. Oh yeah. So, the woman with whom I was speaking? She and her husband live in Lakeview, which is the affluent neighborhood that is on the exact opposite economic spectrum of the 9th Ward. One other thing. She and her family are African American.

The media has not sufficiently told the story of the incredible hardships of the road home for New Orleans residents outside of the 9th Ward. And their hardships and stories are also important to know to understand the barriers to a full, vibrant and quick recovery.

Residential Contractors, a Scarce Commodity
Contractors are very, very difficult to come by. Finding a Contractor Like California Dreamin’ tells my mom’s story of looking for contractors to repair her home. The Times-Picayune, the daily paper in New Orleans, ran a story titled A Clog in the Line which told of the incredible hardship in finding a plumber in New Orleans. Over 18 months ago, my own brother bought a brand new hot water heater that he needed to install in his home. He has paid plumbers to come out to do the work, they didn’t show. He has asked others for quotes and they tell him, “We don’t give quotes, we give bills.” What?!

Clearly, the terse delivery of the message is rude and carries an arrogance that is unhelpful in this Katrina area where doing everyday normal things—such as getting a quote for installing a hot water heater—is like walking through glue. Only after many, many months of enduring this ridiculous lack of business etiquette did he learn that what plumbers are finding is that when they go into do a simple, routine job, one pipe after the other begins to crumble and fall apart. And so giving an accurate quote becomes incredibly difficult for the plumbers.

If I recall correctly, and I’m not sure that I do, the reason for the pipes crumbling is because the salt in the water that flooded the homes corroded the pipes. Something like that. It’s all Katrina related. That’s no excuse for the rudeness. Since the licensing process takes a few years to obtain in Louisiana, plumbers from other parts of the country who would love to donate their talent are prohibited from doing so.

The courts, jails, and child support
Recently, a friend of mine was telling me that she finally hauled her ex into court for his failure to pay child support. Life is tough anyway here in Katrina Land. Raising kids without the financial assistance of their dad makes life tougher. So what happened once they got to court? Well, under pre-Katrina days, he would have been put in jail. However, we don’t have a jail to put him in. He got a free pass for a few months. Without the leverage of jail time, this takes the teeth out of child support enforcement for those situations that require it.

So what’s my point?
The ravages of post-Katrina life in New Orleans and here on the Gulf Coast are difficult to manage. The impact is broad, wide, and deep. The impact of insurance companies like State Farm, Allstate, and Nationwide that apparently deliberately fail to live up to their financial contract on the wind policies of their homeowner customers is keeping money out of the very hands that need it to rebuild, to return home. For those that have some money to repair their homes and businesses, getting good contractors is an exceedingly rare commodity. Without money flowing into the city and county coffers be it from FEMA or insurance companies or tax revenues, local and county governments cannot rebuild basic buildings such as schools to educate children and jails into which to incarcerate parents who are deliberately failing to live up to their financial obligations to their kids even when they do have these financial resources.

That’s my point. Reputable media outlets like the New York Times must tell the whole story of the challenges that post Katrina life presents. From a strictly political perspective, this is how we bring about recovery faster. The more varied the stories, the more the entire picture becomes clear, the greater the opportunity for momentum to build. That is what is needed most of all: momentum outside of the Katrina-ravaged region regarding everything from Insurance companies failing to pay out on legitimate claims . . . to governments not being able to build schools and jails . . . to homeowners not getting the plumbers and other contractors they need . . . to building low income housing in the 9th Ward and throughout the rest of the Katrina area. This is a broader lens through which to see what needs to be done and what can be done to speed up a vibrant recovery.

Today’s political hell raising activity targets the New York Times. Let’s call and write the paper thanking them for investing the time and money to write the story and devoting the enormous amount of space in the paper itself to raise awareness about the continuing challenges of getting home after Katrina. When we talk with or email the paper, we’ll be asking the editors to broaden their lens to include the plight of those in the rest of New Orleans, its surrounding Louisiana cities, and the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast. We’ll again thank them for providing coverage to something that is important to healing the wounds of Katrina and the pathetic circumstances that the insurance companies’ failure to properly fund and the White House failure to provide appropriate leadership has created.

In this way, we’ll praise their coverage and encourage more articles as we direct their attention to additional stories they could explore beyond the 9th Ward.

Go here for today's political hell raising activities.

Return to A.M. in the Morning! Home

Read More......