(Miss.) Judge rules policy excluded flood damage

[KamaAina]

even though the "flood" in question was actually storm surge. :grr:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060815/ap_on_bi_ge/katrina_insurance

U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. ruled that a Mississippi Gulf Coast couple cannot collect damages from storm surge caused by Katrina because Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.'s policies do not cover wind-driven water damage....

Nationwide and other insurers say their homeowners policies cover damage from a hurricane's wind, but not in cases where it resulted from a combination of wind and water.

"This reading of the policy would mean that an insured whose dwelling lost its roof in high winds and at the same time suffered an incursion of even an inch of water could recover nothing under his Nationwide policy," he wrote....

and the kicker...

Senter presided over an eight-day trial without a jury last month. He is hearing virtually all the Katrina insurance cases in Mississippi, so his ruling will be scrutinized by thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners as well as the nation's top insurers.

So it looks like virtually all the Katrina-affected homeowners in Mississippi are up Shit Creek without a paddle. "You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows..." :grr:

[Kutjara]

1. The judge is worth every penny the insurers have paid him. n/t

[Occulus]

23. Do we know if he actually took money from them?

If he did, in the past or now, it seems that would be a good way to attack him..

This ruling is an outrage. I'm starting to think the insurance industry should be nationalized....

They pay lawyers to figure out why they shouldn't pay your claims. They're the only industry I can think of which is legally allowed to employ people whose job it is to figure out how to deny you services.

We need several insurance commissions- auto, fire, flood, home, and life, among others- to figure out how to regulate these parasites.

Keep in mind: in many/most/all states, one is required to own insurance to drive a car. I have never- not once, ever- heard a valid argument as to why this is the case. Liability is not a valid reason, motherfuckers!

Sharks. Parasites. And so forth.

[Purveyor]

2. IIRC Trent Lott has a similar claim pending in Miss. n/t

[MikeyJones]

6. Trent Lott is the brother in law of Dickie Scruggs, the populist.....

Dixie tort attorney who was immortalized for bringing down big tobacco. Scruggs was the guy who they based the movie "The Insider" off of. The problem though is that he's taking on the insurance corps now and they've apparently got their homework down pack because they're sadly beating his ass in court right now. Lott is pissed too because his insurance company wouldn't cover his losses. Same thing with Gene Taylor -- the moderate Democrat rep from the Mississippi Coast. He's also involved in Mr. Scruggs lawsuit.

[LostinVA]

9. Actually, "The Insider" is based on Jeffrey Wigand

Sorry to be pefantic... I've met him, and read his account, and think he was a brave guy.

[PassingFair]

17. "pefantic"?

I think he's talking about the prosecutor in the case, Lost.

[don954]

3. I hope that bribe goes a long way

cause once the judge is at the pearly gates, he will get his judgement....

[onenote]

29. what bribe?

Just talking out our asses aren't we?.

BTW, Senter was appointed to the bench by Jimmy Carter in 1979.

[MikeyJones]

4. I'm one of the people who lost my house in that fucking storm.....

and believe me God are people pissed. It doesn't really matter though. After all is said and done in about 10 years and all the court cases have been settled, the insurance industry is going to drop all their hurricane coverage. Allstate recently dropped their's:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2006/07/26/70803.htm

If anybody puts their trust in corporations then they are very naive indeed.

It's sad because all these people need insurance but there will be none. What I'm also worried about is how with so many lawsuits the lawyers are going to find out very quick that the companies will simply offset their losses by cutting and running. They'll say "fuck you" and then just stop offering insurance. In a way, the insurance industry has the coastal citizenry by the balls. If you don't sue them they *may* stick around for another storm and if you do sue them(as they are being now) then they will retaliate simply by stopping their business in the Coastal states.

Watch it happen. Southern lawyers think they have a bonanza of cases and opportunities on their hands but wait a decade and they'll see how fast they need that insurnace money when the next Katrina comes and there are no crooked insurance companies to even offer *any* coverage at all in respect to none.

[acmavm]

7. I swear to God I feel sorry for you. One time in a heavy storm

with high winds a tree limb fell on my car and smashed it. All State said it was an act of God. I swear, I don't know why God decided to wreck my car, but I was SOL.

I CANNOT even imagine what it would be like to lose one's house.

[MikeyJones]

8. You know.....

in a very sick way I'm sort of glad it happened. I've since moved to Orlando and discovered the beauty of the state of Florida and the rest of the world outside of dreary Mississippi.

Mississippi is such a depressing and poor place to live. The people still fight over racial issues and bullshit in the past. The Mississippi Coast was thankfully pretty well insulated from all the stuff happening North of us but we found ourselves in a position of being the cashcow for Jackson so they could take our casino and tourist money and distribute it to little poor one-horse piss towns around the state -- leaving us without the appropriate funds to either build a seawall or to properly make our roads. It's quite amazing giving that we were very poor in comparison to 5th rate urban areas in Florida. Mississippi is that desperate for money.

I'd much rather see the Mississippi and Alabama coastal areas as part of Florida. That way our tax burden would have been much lower because Florida doesn't need to milk its lucrative resort areas for much-needed tax revenue. They actually have enough money to fund their schools and keep their roads in good condition.

But thank you so very much for your kind words. They are not forgotten believe me. I'm so greatful to all the people who have come and helped clean up and rebuild but I fear their efforts are in vain because so many people in FEMA trailerparks are just going to move on eventually and find new lives elsewhere. When Hurricane Andrew nailed South Florida many moved away and never came back. I fear the same thing is going to happen to New Orleans and the Mississippi Coast sadly. And to be honest, the new Coast will be so different I don't know if I will even want to live there again.

No more beautiful pre-Civil War homes, no more docked casinos -- all those were washed away with the storms along with the old shrimp factories and the oyster houses. Now they're planning on turning it into a strip of gambling establishments -- which is fine for business but all it will do is gentrify and whitify the cities of Gulfport and Biloxi. Poor whites and minorities are going to be forced out by high property taxes and surging real estate costs. It'll be a "whitening" of the area as condos full of rich white rednecks move in and tear up the old blue collar neighborhoods that gave the cities their charm. Biloxi won't be Biloxi any more and I've found Orlando to be quite nice so I think I'd rather not return.

But again, believe me, everybody down there appreciates your kind words. They go a long way in showing care when we can't find it in the form of a president who would rather spend our tax dollars that we entrusted to him to trans-national corporations and to pay for the salaries and health care benefits of foriegn nationals in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Bake]

10. Enjoy Orlando.

We've got enough negativity here in MS without you. And I'm not sure our coastal residents WANT to be a "part of Florida." From what I can tell, FL is pretty f***ed up itself.

So we'll keep our coast here in MS. Maybe you guys can take NOLA.

Bake

[MikeyJones]

16. Your coast?

All our fucking tax money financed four laning tiny country roads to small towns like Oxford and Corinth. Just because the head of the house is from there he can say where all the tax money goes. The state's eventually going to implode any way. Go to the casinos and you'll see more out of state car tags in the parking lot than from counties north of the 6 coastal counties.

The people north of Hattiesburg didn't appreciate or help us before the storm and they're not going to help us now. Most of our pre-Katrina casino revenue came from people from New Orleans/Baton Rouge, Mobile, and West Florida. With the exceptions of a few car tags from the Jackson area and a few from the counties immediately adjacent to the 6 southern counties like Forrest and Jones county nobody in that worthless state even gave a damn to come down and give us some of our tax revenue back that they stole from us.

I'm sorry but I'd rather take care of the Coast instead of paying for 4 lane highways in the middle of nowhere for fat fundamentalist baptists to tell me I'm going to hell because I like to gamble and because I believe people should have a right to privacy. Take my advice and move somewhere else. The Dems in the state are really closet cons who just like the Dem name because they like the free government benefits that keep so many of them obese, well-fed, and high off the meth they cook up in their trailers from the ingredients they buy from their welfare checks.

Mississippi's a dead state. Take my advice and leave.

The people in the Northern part of the state don't like us because we're mainly Catholic and because we celebrate Mardi Gras and because our culture is more like that of Mobile/New Orleans than Jackson or Oxford. So I say let them have their poverty and their Southern traditions and stop slowing us down by using us as a cash cow and let us join the future with the rest of the progressives who Florida who realize there is a world outside of the church down the road.

[GeorgeGist]

24. "our tax money"?

"Most of our pre-Katrina casino revenue came from people from New Orleans/Baton Rouge, Mobile, and West Florida."

Your words... not mine

[MikeyJones]

30. re:

me:"Most of our pre-Katrina casino revenue came from people from New Orleans/Baton Rouge, Mobile, and West Florida."

you:"Your words... not mine"

It's true. I went to the Grand and the Imperial Palace casinos EVERY weekend in the Summer of 2005 and I always parked towards the top of the parking lot so me and my drunk friends could look at the license plates as we came down the garage. 9/10 cars we counted on average in both of those casinos -- and they were 2 of the biggest ones pre-Katrina - were from either the six Southern counties of Mississippi, Alabama, West Florida, Texas, or Louisiana.

When I say "our" casino revenue I refer to the Coast's, not Mississippi as a state since they have other gambling meccas like Tunica and Greenville.

And then they took hoards of casino revenue every single day from the various casinos of the Coast. All those hundreds of millions of dollars year after year greasing its way up to Jackson and then off to all the little fundamentalist Republican spitholes in every corner of the state.

We pave their roads and put their fat kids through school and then they have the nerve to go in their churches on Sunday morning and preach how evil gambling is and then even more nerve in some areas like Tupelo with the American Family Association -- and actually get a coalition of Northern Mississippi legislators and state senators to attempt to ban gaming in Mississippi. Those far-right kooks have a lot of nerve with their pretentious judgemental casino-financed fundamentalist lifestyles they lead.

Mississippi -- gotta love it.

But seriously, honestly I'm just trying to help you out, I mean you as an individual no offense at all. I just hope you will wise up and leave that crumbling hypocrite-hole and find a new life in a more progressive region. Orlando's great -- and I am enjoying it.

Cheers.

[pitohui]

13. yes this is a huge issue

why should people rebuild if they can't get coverage?

i live in louisiana and i tell you what, if we could move away, we would, let the rest of the country see how they like it when they're nobody down here to operate the pipelines and refineries and get the seafood and operate the ports

the hard working person of the gulf coast seems to be completely despised by this country, well, i would like to see them get along w.out us

[Tesha]

28. There'll be immigrants more than willing to do the work. (NT)

[UpInArms]

18. Welcome to DU, MikeyJones!

Glad to have you here :hi:

Sorry about your house :( but glad that you have found a place to live that you are enjoying :)

[acmavm]

5. Oh well, I'm sure the good governor of their state is willing to

help the good citizens of Mississippi out.

:sarcasm: in spades!

[pitohui]

11. it is a tragedy

unfortunately as far as i'm aware this is pretty much the expected ruling, as it is the traditional interpretation of homeowner's coverage

there needs to be aggressive help provided to homeowners to help them rebuild one way or another

[damntexdem]

12. And you also know who has been appointing judges.

Has voting GOP helped the people of Mississippi? Time for a change?

[catmandu57]

14. I hate #$T^%$# insurance cos

I could turn this forum blue cussing these lowlife weasels, now they've bought judges, fuck a bunch of lowlife scumsucking bottom dwelling weasels.

[depakid]

15. "...a combination of wind and water."

Seems to me that one can sort that out fairly enough-

But, fairness is NOT a Republican value.

And I hate to say this- but I don't feel one bit sorry for Republicans who get screwed by this.

Dems and others have my deepest sympathy.

Memo to Mississippi Dems- this might just be a good way to draw a contrast between your candidates and the far right...

Just a thought.

[jocal]

20. I wouldn't....

The ruling judge, Senior District Judge L.T. Senter Jr., is a Carter appointee. :grr:

[depakid]

21. Lovely...

Thanks for the heads up.

It's still a hell of an issue to run on, though.

A Republican position is a Republican position- even when so called Democrats embrace it.

[Supersedeas]

19. Is Nationwide on YOUR side?????????????????????

[hedgehog]

22. I checked my insurance policy last month when I renewed.

In several places, in plain language, my policy specifically excludes damage from flood waters even if they are wind driven. This is standard boiler plate. My policy does cover wind damage and damage caused by wind driven rain if a damaged structure is open to the elements. People talk about having hurricane insurance, but unless I see it in writing, I can't believe there is such a thing. I think it's damage against wind or floods, and you aren't covered for floods unless the policy says so.


By the way - we got dropped by our first insurance company because we have an old three story barn that we use for a garage and storage. Too many people were letting their old barns go down under snow load and then putting in a claim. We found a company that would look at our barn to see that it was in good shape. We bought two policies, one for the house and one for the barn. We get one or two postcards every winter reminding us not to let too much snow accumulate on the barn roof. The insurance company is a partner to provide back-up in case something bad happens that we can't prevent.

[GeorgeGist]

25. Is it possible to have a hurricane...

that doesn't produce wind. Or am I misinformed that the wind is what causes storm surge.

[hedgehog]

27. As I said above, my policy specifically excludes flood waters

"even if wind driven."

An insurance policy is a partnership, not a lottery ticket. If you build in an area where it is reasonable to expect certain hazards, you must take precautions against those hazards. The odds of any one place being hit by a hurricane in a given year are probably low. A hurricane will hit somewhere, but you may live in a place for fifty years and never see one. A lot of people gambled that they would never need flood insurance, and they lost.

By the way, should the big one hit Long island this summer, I expect to see a lot of people in million dollar homes making the same complaints about their insurance policies.

[Bake]

26. The plaintiffs were offered, but turned down, flood insurance

Because they were not in a MANDATORY flood insurance zone. Furthermore, the judge didn't completely throw out the case -- he said they could prove and recover damages that were caused by wind and wind-driven water. The storm surge damaged the lower floor of the house - up to five feet. Damage above that level, that was not caused by the storm surge, was still recoverable (e.g., the roof, etc.).

Judge Senter didn't give the insurance company everything it wanted, nor did he give the plaintiffs everything they wanted. Seems to me he "split the baby."

Bake