Slabbed. One of many first issues anyone may discover from Hurricane Katrina’s path alongside the Mississippi Coast was the variety of constructions that have been a complete loss. After pulling off the particles, these constructions have been famous as “slabbed.”
Whereas social media journalism was nonetheless in its infancy, one such regional reporting effort in regards to the plight of Hurricane Katrina policyholders was “Slabbed.” In Slabbed Retains Pounding on Coverage Protection Issues and the Litigation Discovery Coverage in Southern Mississippi, I wrote about Slabbed and its essential position to these impacted by Hurricane Katrina and struggling by the hardships of insurance coverage litigation:
Coastal Mississippi policyholders are nicely served by the every day and in-depth reporting by Slabbed. Writing every day for this weblog is time consuming; posting two to 5 in-depth discussions every day should border on a full-time job. Currently, Slabbed’s posts have highlighted two essential points relating to insurance coverage protection and insurance coverage protection litigation in Mississippi. One, if insurance coverage firms wish to pay nothing beneath the all-risk coverage due to the anti-concurrent causation clause, a brand new kind coverage is required–even when the federal government has to sponsor it. Two, the insurance coverage trade is profitable the lawsuits in Southern Mississippi as a result of they’re profitable the invention battle over key data.
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I merely would not have time to learn Slabbed on a regular basis. But, I’ve no hesitation in suggesting that many can be taught an incredible deal from the posts. The concepts are exceedingly authentic. I’m sure that these within the insurance coverage trade dislike Slabbed as a result of it does tend to demonize the trade and people supporting their establishment. Think about if all of your greatest buddies, neighbors, and household needed to endure monetary destroy attributable to insurance coverage not paying following a devastating disaster like Hurricane Katrina. I think about your rhetoric in direction of insurers and their brokers wouldn’t be very complimentary both.
Touring within the fire-stricken areas of the Los Angeles wildfires additionally has “slabbed’ whole loss constructions, which appear to go on ceaselessly. It’s merely laborious to consider. I assumed that if I ever used my California Bar license in a disaster state of affairs, it might be in response to an earthquake and never an city wildfire that destroyed over 15,000 constructions.
What’s the one situation 95% of all these poor of us suffered because of a complete loss, leaving them with solely a slab? They’re underinsured for the construction threat. The breadth and devastating penalties of the underinsurance plague don’t absolutely emerge till these mass whole loss conditions happen.
Actually days earlier than the Los Angeles blazes began, I warned about this looming disaster – now a actuality in California – in The Looming Homeownership Disaster: A Ticking Time Bomb of Underinsurance, Insurance coverage Premiums, Taxes, Systemic Losses, and Homeowners Not Capable of Pay for Prices of Possession. Now, we’ve a gentle stream of wildfire purchasers coming to us with points relating to underinsurance.
Hurricane Katrina is clearly on my thoughts as its twentieth anniversary is upon us. We did some essential work following that storm, which I’m very happy with. Now, I’m spending plenty of my time working with our agency’s California-based attorneys on one of the novel occasions in our lifetime. Who truthfully would consider 15,000 constructions burning to the bottom in Los Angeles in 2025? Mass city fires have been over within the nineteenth century till lately.
The issue is that we aren’t studying sufficient classes to stop lots of the similar points from repeating themselves. It’s nearly as if the insurance coverage trade says, “Properly, that’s simply the best way it’s” with out attempting to plan a way to repair the insurance coverage product and make it work higher for everybody.
One 12 months in the past, in “Why Are Policyholders So Ceaselessly Underinsured within the Occasion of a Whole Loss? What Can Repair the Underinsurance Drawback?” I wrote about strategies specialists made on tips on how to right the underinsurance drawback. I famous the essential position of insurance coverage commissioners in doing one thing because the insurance coverage trade appears to wish to do nothing about this vital situation:
Each insurance coverage regulator and insurance coverage commissioner ought to totally learn this work and take motion. The underinsurance drawback is profound and impacts not solely policyholders but additionally raises its ugly head when co-insurance is taken into account and raised in the course of the claims course of. It arises in litigation when policyholders ask me what duty insurers and insurance coverage brokers have when whole loss constructions are usually not near having sufficient insurance coverage protection for rebuilding. Underinsurance is just not good for anyone.
Loads has modified in 20 years, and far remains to be needlessly the identical.
Thought For The Day
“Though the world is stuffed with struggling, it is usually filled with the overcoming of it.”
—Helen Keller
