St. Paul Travelers Cos. Inc., Louisiana's largest commercial insurance provider, plans to cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year, sparking fears that other insurers will follow and slow the region's economic recovery.
While the St. Paul, Minn., company refused to say how many commercial policies will be affected or specify where the cuts will be in South Louisiana, two insurance brokers who were briefed by the company this week say Travelers will not renew any property insurance for businesses in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and eastern St. Tammany parishes. Cuts will also affect individual businesses in other parts of South Louisiana, including St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes.
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I showed this to Mrs. F, an executive in Japan's largest insurance company, and she agrees that other insurers will most likely follow suit. Any excuse to limit exposure. The insurance companies will all jump on this statement by the insurance commissioner:
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"They cited the state of the rebuilding of our levee system as the primary reason for their decision," [State Insurance Commissioner Jim] Donelon said.
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The one to blame for this is your Commander-in-Chief and what he's done to FEMA and the entire emergency management infrastructure of the federal government. Don't expect anything to happen in NOLA until the Corps of Engineers rebuilds the levees to withstand Cat 4 and 5 storms. The insurers won't risk their bottom line to underwrite properties that can be washed away as easily as they were during Katrina. Let's hope something can be done before too much time passes and NOLA becomes nothing but a fond memory.
And just an observation. I give Mrs. F the willies when I can speak of combat, death, and destruction in a cool and detached manner. She does the same thing to me when she can talk about the value of a human life or property in purely clinical, actuarial, bottom line terms.
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