This may very well be the death knell for NOLA

[CatWoman]

Louisiana’s largest commercial insurance provider “plans to cancel all its commercial property policies in the New Orleans area next year,” citing the slow reconstruction of the levee system. A leading economic development official said the decision has sent a “shock wave through the business community,” which “cannot exist” without insurance. First-Draft called it “disastrous to the recovery of New Orleans.”

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/12/03/nolas-fate-is-our-fate/

[Robbien]

1. It is hard to know what the solution is

FEMA failed. The WH failed.

If government is supposed to be the solution to NOLA, the politicians responsible for LA have been very ineffective.

This just pisses me off and makes me over-whelmingly sad, both at the same time.

[LSK]

2. simple - $9billion / month towards NOLA instead of Iraq

This is just an outrage on so many levels!!!

:grr:

[uppityperson]

6. this would be a simple idea.

even a small portion of that money.

[annabanana]

3. I saw that article this morning...

The whole Gulf seems to be suffering from "Insured" disease.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2849631&mesg_id=2849631

[Selatius]

4. Those levees are no better than they were before Katrina

All they have done so far is patch up the holes. They are still rated as only being able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane.

We should not expect major insurance companies to insure New Orleans, which lies below sea level, in light of that fact. This is something we all must accept until somebody can build levees that can take a direct hit from a Category 5 storm, and that's not going to happen for the next two years with Bush in power.

[Horse with no Name]

5. I saw it coming.

They know how to get what they want.
They are in essence making it impossible for NOLA to recover.
Then when it is all abandoned, they can reclaim it for the oil industry.
I simply don't see it as a rich playground. I see it becoming the type of roughneck/port town that Houston was at one time without any of its flavor.
See: Odessa, TX.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. folks, forget the short view. the LONG view is what matters.

Even though capitalism is not perfect, it is efficient when dealing with its self-interest. What is the insurance industry's self-interest? grabbing all the premium it can, paying its expenses and top salaries, and paying as few claims as possible. (and for most companies, making a profit off of its investments).

By voting with its dollars, it just voted against the Bush administration science advidiots. No global warming? No growing threat of rising ocean levels? No increase in frequency and strength of storms? No? R i i i i i g h t !.

The insurance industry knows better than to believe the industry PR shitheads who keep denying the truth. They know better, because they have to know better. They have done their own studies, and realize that low-lying areas are dead. Even with top of the line, high tech, best technology walls around New Orleans, it is a dead city with no future. Time, weather, and sea levels have condemned it to a slow, but certain death. That fact cannot be escaped, even with ever higher walls, thicker than the pyramids. The ground itself is like a sponge, and is collapsing. It is sinking. The periodic floods that replenished it have been stopped, accellerating the damage. The oil, water, and natural gas pumped from underneath is speeding up the sinking. The accellerating slide into the gulf by the shelf holding NOLA won't be stopped by any wall. Or pump. Or preyer.

What the insurance industry realizes is that global warming is a fact, and with that fact, they know this city is dead.

[bullimiami]

8. insurance needs to be severely reregulated. it needs to pool all catastrophic

insurance, flood, hurricane, tornados, earthquakes, blizzards, into a single overall pool. so the losses are distributed. every part of the country is susceptible to something.

[Donnachaidh]

9. Insurance companies always start screaming pull out when courts smack them down

They did the same thing in California after the quakes.

Once they've got the fear ratcheted up they will quietly start trying to get out from under some of the lawsuits the court dumped on them last week. And the State being afraid of the companies leaving, will go along with the behind the scenes wrangling. And very quietly Traveler's will perhaps close a few offices, but they won't leave.

The only real losers will be the policyholders. Because the State will buy into the fear, rather then enact legislation to keep these companies from pulling these tactics.