Day: August 1, 2008

Travelers to Sop. Ummm, You Forgot Something Bub.

Indeed I did forget something earlier today when I profiled the latest coastal multi peril insurance plan, namely, the Travelers-Nationwide plan that was floated out 10 days or so ago. Before I get to the 4-pillars-plan I’m going to share a bit of insight I gained last night when, for the first time in literally months I was able to catch up with the guys from Soggy Bottom, shoot the breeze and a have few brews with them. What I heard last night reminded me my first finance board offline gathering after the storm in the Atlanta area, when my good cyberfriend Buford made a prediction about the coast real estate market after I described the problems with getting insurance coverage.

Don’t buy now, when the market capitulates you’ll be able to buy cheap.

Given real estate pricing here back in January 2006 I thought it was an awfully bold prediction but Buford, the sage college finance professor knows his stuff. Here is the dynamic of how the sky high costs of insurance can crater the real estate market despite pent up demand.

  1. Katrina floods but does not destroy the house. Owner, with help from the SBA, insurance and private lending fixes the residence and re-occupies. Or, house is destroyed and owner buys nearby at an inflated post storm demand driven price.
  2. Insurance renews for 2006-2007, the increase in premiums is astronomic. Family budgets are strained.
  3. Gasoline and rising food costs coupled with the out of sight costs of insurance pushes many residents into mortgage default, home is repossessed. Many were already active listings on the market.
  4. Bank gets first insurance bill Continue reading “Travelers to Sop. Ummm, You Forgot Something Bub.”

Biggers recommends Arkansas for Zach UPDATED

Anita Lee reports Judge Bigger’s has responded to Zach’s request to serve his sentence in Arkansas – but the news that caught my eye was mention Dick Scruggs would serve his sentence there as well.

U.S. District Judge Neal B. Biggers Jr. is now recommending that former attorney Zach Scruggs be sent to prison in Ft. Smith, Ark., where his father, former attorney Dickie Scruggs, also is expected to begin serving a five-year sentence Monday.

Kentucky, I gather is out. (see update at end of post)

Biggers said he was recommending the Arkansas prison for the convenience of Scruggs family members who want to visit. Both Scruggses initially requested that they serve their time at a minimum-security prison in Pensacola, but the Bureau of Prisons would not send Dickie Scruggs there because he has a pilot’s license and an airfield is located nearby.

A third defendant in the judicial bribery case, former attorney Sidney A. Backstrom, also is scheduled to begin serving his 28-month sentence Monday at the minimum-security prison in Ft. Smith.

h/t to justme for letting us know the Sun Herald is now reporting Dick Scruggs will serve his sentence in Kentucky. The quote above was copied from the earlier version of the story and pasted in FYI but the link now goes to different story with Biggers recommendation in pdf posted but no mention of correction. However, when you go to the link in this story, you can see the quote in the clip.

Two New Coastal Insurance Proposals Floated

I considered slabbed a success when earlier this summer Nationwide unveiled a multi peril insurance proposal. Obviously we are bit players in this but the discussion here on slabbed coupled with the growing political movement to rein in what appears to be systemic insurer claimant abuse has stimulated discussion that hereto for has not taken place. The contrast of Summer 2008 with last year is telling. I remember the Sun Herald’s coverage of Rep Frank’s House finance committee hearings in 2007 when the industry, especially the reinsurance sector was on record firmly against Gene’s proposal but offered no solutions of their own. Now we see trial balloon solutions being floated seemingly weekly and for the slabbed is a sign for hope.

I’ve maintained a generally open mind about the proposals to date. But I found the first two stinkers IMHO this morning, one courtesy of the Sun Herald and one courtesy of Editilla at the NOLA News Ladder. That does not mean of course us slabbers don’t appreciate the input because we do greatly, I just don’t like the latest proposals. First off we’ll start off at the Hartford Courant which reported on a proposal by the Hartford Insurance Company for multi peril coverage:

With a personal rollout by CEO Ramani Ayer, The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. is the latest voice in a deepening debate over how to solve insurance problems many people are facing in the post-Katrina era, from Maine to Florida and along the Gulf Coast. Continue reading “Two New Coastal Insurance Proposals Floated”

"I decided law was the exact opposite of sex; even when it was good, it was lousy

My mother’s daughter and children’s mother dreamed of the day she’d become a lawyer; and, believe it or not she almost made it; and, of course, that she is me – a much younger version, but me. The same me that prepared for the LSAT the way she does for other important events. I shopped. Just barely 20, if that, my approach far different from that of my friends approaching graduation – those whose fathers were lawyers and their father’s father before that.

I was so out of the legal loop that I looked at the letter of early admission I later received and said I couldn’t possibly do that. Such were the days when most got degrees as insurance before dream chasing; and, I was two years away from that. I did enroll the fall after but on a part-time basis, never thinking part-time would be one day – uno -and the day before I was transferred from Oxford.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the story but simply say, I must hold a record. Every move I made after that was the year the whatever school of law in wherever I was living would decide to admit full-time only – usually just as soon as I’d get the next baby old enough for me to give it another try.

Reality does that to dreams, this time mine; but, folks, at last I know I’ll die happy. This bird’s eye view we’ve all had of the legal system since last November was been my taking the cure – and reading the depositions filed this week ensured there will be no relapse. We’re talking people getting paper-f__ked statewide with an all out orgy in Oxford. Continue reading “"I decided law was the exact opposite of sex; even when it was good, it was lousy”