This Charley had no `angels’
By Herb Drill
The dollar cost can be figured out; the human cost is incalculable.
The Hurricane Bonnie-spawned twister missed Mandarin/St. Johns but smacked the lives of people who can least afford the damage. Hurricane Charley was even less angelic. It missed us and the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, but slashed a path of devastation.
The second hurricane’s force, much greater than expected, led CNN/Money Magazine to rank it as “the second most expensive storm in U.S. history.” That’s only the physical damage. CNN/Money reported insurance industry loss forecasters earlier had feared a direct hit on the more densely-populated Tampa area would leave insured losses in the $10 billion range. One forecaster said that loss forecast might still be accurate, despite the different storm path.
“The property value (of the area where the storm hit) is about one-fifth what it is in Tampa/St. Petersburg, but the hurricane made landfall at a much higher intensity,” Kyle Beatty, meteorologist for Risk Management Solutions, a provider of catastrophe risk management services for the insurance industry, told the magazine.
He said Charley’s span was almost identical to an unnamed 1944 hurricane, and that modeling of that storm - using today's property value and insurance levels - estimated the insured losses at $10 billion. That would be second only to 1992's Hurricane Andrew, the nation's most expensive storm at an inflation-adjusted $20 billion, and the most expensive natural disaster since the 1994 Northridge, CA earthquake, with an inflation-adjusted $15 billion in damage.
Since the majority of us own homes – or at least hold a mortgage on one, we have considerable investments to protect. One constructive thing we can do after last week is to understand our rights under a homeowner's insurance policy. It’s not perfect for any storm, but knowledge is still powerful.
CNN/Money Magazine offered five tips on getting through a hurricane:
1) Know what you need - hurricane damage is covered under a standard homeowner's policy. If a home is damaged or destroyed by a hurricane, you will be covered for temporary repairs. You can be reimbursed for additional living expenses if the storm makes your home uninhabitable.
Most damage results from storm surge, flooding. Generally, insurers won't underwrite flood insurance; that's up to the federal government. You might consider coverage offered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Flood Insurance Program.
That “pond” crossed by the Buckman Bridge could be more than “three feet high and risin’,” as Johnny Cash sang, and Julington Creek looks like a river to me.
2) Get the right insurance coverage early. After a hurricane warning or watch has been issued is too late to get, change, or upgrade coverage. Typically, a moratorium applies for 48 hours after a watch or warning has been lifted. Most insurers require a property inspection when processing applications. Such coverage, issued by the National Flood Insurance Program, has an automatic 30-day waiting period.
3) Don't get canceled. Companies could decide to discontinue your policy in a hurricane’s wake if there were hazards that aggravated damages, like dead trees or a faulty roof.
4) Make sure your home is in good repair and large items that could become missiles in high winds are removed before the storm nears.
5) Know thy deductible - most policies now have a percentage deductible rather than a dollar deductible: 1-5% of the home's insured value.
Remember, we live on a peninsula bounded by BIG bodies of water. This time, we “dodged a bullet,” a catastrophe. Consider the possibility of “the `fire’ next time.”
Herb Drill is the principal of Able Me & Associates!, Mandarin-based marketing consultants to the overlooked disabled community.