Serendipity today has led me to realize why it is that recovery efforts in New Orleans have been lagging so severely. This started with a CNN special on Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday, February 07, 2007, Insurance companies fight paying billions in claims. Then I saw The Gulf Coast: Road To Renewal on PBS.
The PBS program begins with this premise:
More than seven months after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the region is hardly back to normal. Fewer than half of New Orleans residents have returned since the storm, and 9.9% of Mississippi residents remain unemployed -- more than double the national average.
The program then tries to take a hopeful note, but it only served to remind me of all the programs that have been aired about FEMA delays, claim denials, and pittances paid. The forehead-slapping moment had arrived.
The first story seems to help explain the second.
That is, the CNN story explains how the insurance companies have deliberately indulged in a strategy of "the three Ds: delay, deny and defend."
Allstate is betting you won't wait, you won't sue and you'll take what you get and walk-away. And that, say our experts, has been a good bet for Allstate and others. Accident victims have been walking away from billions of dollars that insurers now keep for themselves.
Doesn't this sound a lot like FEMA's approach to Katrina?
Bob in HI
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