Insurance Blog



In the video it discussed Hurricane Katrina and how many people were denied their insurance claims after the storm. I found this very interesting, and I've always thought that the events of Hurricane Katrina were fascinating. My whole family went to school at Tulane, so New Orleans has been apart of my life for a while. My parents have distinct memories from the hurricane that they've shared, and they had friends who lost their homes, and much of their livelihood due to the storms impact. It took so long for the city to build itself back up, which it is still in the process of doing, even after all these years, and I think insurance has something to do with that. 
One of the main reasons why people were denied their insurance claim was because the insurance companies would look for loopholes in their agreements to get out of paying their customers. Many homeowners were left with nothing on their properties besides the foundation after their houses were swept away. The loophole that many insurance companies found with this was that it was impossible to tell how the damages to houses were sustained. An insurance company might cover flood but not wind damage, or vice versa. In Hurricane Katrina winds reached up to 150 mph and there was historic flooding in many areas due to breeches in the leeves. All these factors made it impossible for homeowners and insurance companies alike to tell what had happened to a house or property. Many homeowners ended up going to trial with many of the insurance companies. They claimed that insurance companies wanted to pay as little as possible, and there was incentive for them to deny the claims. 
One of my most memorable insurance incidents was regarding the Memorial Day Flooding. We were living in this awesome house that backed right up to the bayou for about two years. It was a great house in a cool neighborhood. The water had risen high enough a couple of times enough to make us nervous, but on Memorial Day the water reached our wine cellar and garage. It flooded our cars, and my dad had kept his recording studio in the cellar, and all of his music equipment was ruined. That was probably the worst part of it, because it was a collection my dad had worked for years to accumulate. I remember after the water had receded to knew height we put on waders and rescued all the water logged guitars and amps, laying them all out on the muddy driveway. My dad took pictures for the insurance companies, because he had his guitars covered, which I think is crazy. And thankfully we had flood insurance, but I can still remember my parents being on the phone for hours with the insurance people in order to asses the damages and receive the proper coverage. 

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