Toxic Relief?

"On the eve of yesterday's hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, FEMA reversed course on the issue and said it has asked federal health officials to help conduct a new assessment of conditions in trailers under prolonged use. But revelation of the agency's earlier posture -- in documents withheld by FEMA until they were subpoenaed by Congress -- attracted harsh bipartisan criticism.

Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) decried what he called FEMA's indifference to storm victims and said the situation was "sickening." He said the documents "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance" and added that "senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."

It's bad enough these folks were ignored during the Katrina fiasco, then FEMA put them in toxic trailers. Those who knew what happened and failed to act should be sentenced to life in the still unrebuilt 9th ward. The only shelter is those lovely trailers

FEMA Fraud, Surprised?

Many of my associates have been spending their summer vacations helping the Katrina victims restore their homes. One of the biggest issues has been the removal of the trash. What good does it do if one or two homes are rebuilt and they are surrounded by piles of trash. Isn't this a fait de compli?

What if the money that was misdirected, had been spent on dumpsters? Wouldn't this be the beginning of restoring sanity to these people's lives?

The unsung heroes are those who continue to migrate south each summer to help these victims. It is a shame that our government does not have that same commitment to this region.

Like or not, if Ft. Lauderdale would have been struck this hard, all levels of government would have responded differently, then and now.

But they can't pay the Katrina claims

Most insurance carriers have what is called reinsurers. Which means another carrier or syndicate will assume the risk after the claims reach a certain value.

Funny how the insurance companies are doing just fine. It's not complicated, if no money is going out (payment of claims), those companies keep that money. Then they pull out of the market. Yep, it's legal. Insurance companies have always done this little dance. Always.

Remember it is the one item, you voluntarily pay for and have to fight like hell to get them to provide the service which is to pay for legitimate claims.

Allstate v. Katrina victims

Allstate has always prided itself on screwing people out of a full settlement. As one of the largest providers of what is called personal lines insurance, they never paid the full cost of a claim unless they were sued.

If their insured rearended your car, they would only pay 90%. Why? They argued that there was an assumption of risk simply being on the road. Instead of going to arbitration over the 10% the claim would settle so that additional costs would not be incurred. Can you image how much money they saved by doing using this technique? It's not illegal. It's just not right.

This is not new. I have been in the insurance business over 20 years and this practice dates back to the early 80's.

No one wonder our industry is viewed as a lower life form than a used car salesman.