$40 Billion insurance bill for Katrina

Get ready for some huge insurance hikes, that money has to come from somewhere.
This huge bill will impact on the viability of busnesses rebuiilding in New Orleans.

observer.guardian.co.uk...

BRITISH and American insurance industries face claims topping $40 billion following the devastation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The figure, leaked to The Observer by sources within the Lloyds of London insurance market, is similar to the hit taken by companies following the terrorist attacks in September 2001. As a consequence, businesses face huge hikes in insurance premiums.

Where I live we had big floods in Jan 05 and now some people cannot get any insurance at all on their properties whereas the rest of us in my town seem to have been subject to a bit of a reevaluation regarding flood threat, and as a result others have indeed had a premium hike.

The estimates of Insured losses I have seen is around 20-25 billion with the total losses around 40 billion, but those are just speculative figures.

www.newratings.com...


What I found shocking is that 60% of the people in the areas hardest hit by flooding lack flood insurance. By some quirk, FEMA redrew flood boundries in palo Alto and we were on the fringe of it by 1 block and its like a 100 year flood zone. SO our mortgage company made us get flood insurance that costs almost as much as our regular homeowners. 650 for our house 600 for flood. I wonder why in a city that is below sea level, the mortgage lenders did not require it? Ours refused to approve the loan if we did not buy it.

Also, Banks will take a hit as people declare bankrupcy because of job/home/business losses and all those mortgages and credit card debt will never be payed

This tragedy is going to affect insurance rates all over the world.

We're all going to be paying the bill.