The Laurel Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors and a number of visitors were entertained by a speech from Mississippi Commissioner of Insurance George Dale Friday at Dixie Golf Club.
Dale was speaking just a few days after State Farm Insurance announced it was no longer writing new homeowner policies in Mississippi. State Farm is the largest insurance carrier in Mississippi.
“I told the vice president of State Farm the day before (the announcement), ‘You’re going to make my job even more difficult,’” Dale said.
Dale said he understood that it was a business decision, and he had made every effort to see if his office could prevent State Farm from making its decision not to write any new policies but had no legal basis to stop State Farm.
“The answer they gave as the reason why they did this is because of the uncertainty of what they have to pay for,” Dale said.
“We’re still making the same mistakes. After Camille what was the number one issue?” Dale said. “If the wind came before the water you had coverage. If the water came before the wind you have no coverage.”
“What are we still arguing about 36 years later, wind versus water,” Dale said.
“After Camille, every insurance company pulled off the coast except USF&G;, and USF&G; don’t exist today,” Dale said. “There was nobody left to write insurance.”
For Katrina, Dale said 436,000 claims have been filed and $11.9 billion has been paid out by the insurance industry so far, and more than $8 billion of that money has been paid to three coastal counties hardest hit.
According to Dale, most standard property insurance policies say that rising water, driven by wind or not, is not covered.
Dale said it is expected that with hundreds of thousands of claims that a few people were not going to be treated fairly, but he thinks most people got treated fairly.
Dale also said the insurance industry is the worst industry in dealing with public relations. “You give free reign to others to say anything they want to whether or not it’s completely true or not, and the insurance industry says ‘no comment,’” Dale said.
With more and more people moving to the coast, Dale said this problem is not going away.
“We’ve got to find a way to provide insurance for our people who live on our Mississippi Gulf Coast at an afforable rate,” Dale said.
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Photo - Brandon Fincher
Dale comments on State Farm decision
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