Given that Mr Obama hails from the home state of both State Farm and Allstate this should surprise no one. The bottom line is it is status quo for wind insurance thus if you’re trapped in the wind pool keep grabbing yer ankles as there is no relief in sight.
Before I link the Sun Herald story a few observations:
- The house oversight committee for the Department of Homeland Security is chaired by Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson yet Gene could not get a meeting with Janet Napolitano despite trying for two months.
- Nancy Pelosi’s clout with the Obama administration looks to be minuscule to nonexistent.
- Any meaningful regulatory reform with respect to the insurance industry is at least 4 years off.
Maria Recio has the Sun Herald story:
After coming under tremendous pressure to release his hold on FEMA nominee Craig Fugate before hurricane season begins, Sen. David Vitter, R-La. this morning gave the former Florida emergency chief the green light for Senate confirmation.
But, no sooner had Vitter said he was now satisfied that FEMA would resolve his V-Zone issues than another controversy surfaced. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, issued a blistering statement after learning of the Obama Administrations’ opposition to his multi-peril insurance.
sop
It’s not over. They don’t know anything about the issue and will have to be educated. We didn’t get a meeting because the real policy positions have not been filled. I don’t know why they wrote the letter but I suspect it was rushed in response to Senate confirmation questions.
The letter doesn’t just dismiss the wind coverage. It ignores every lesson of Katrina and endorses nothing but ways to increase premiums. It could have been written by Richard Shelby.
Brian you’re being far too nice to the administration. If Napolitano spoke out of ignorance (and ignorant would be the nice way to explain that letter) then that is also very bad. Napolitano was appointed to know the issues that face all the agencies under her charge FEMA included.
From a fiscal standpoint including administration of TARP Obama and his boys are little more than George Bush lite to this point. I voted for change – we could have kept the GOP in charge if paying executive bonuses with tax money was the ultimate public policy goal.
Every working person who is being raped for wind coverage has been BF’d by Obama and Napolitano. They are for the little people my a$$.
sop
Our bill is just not elitist enough. They can’t support a government program that would stop Bermuda reinsurers and their rich investors from charging coastal homeowners 5 to 10 times more in premiums than their expected claims. Where is the welfare for millionaires in that?
From the S/H reader comments. Well sums it up:
Well, Brian, let’s “dress it up and take it out”.
Speaking of those who do dress up and go out, it’s illegal for an entity managing federal funds to lobby on issues related to the source of those funds. It would seem the documented influence on the NFIP Expedited Claims Handling Process was an illegal activity.
“I oppose extending the federal government’s role and increasing its liability for an insurance program that is readily available in the private sector and through state insurance plans,” Fugate said. “Many carriers in Florida have told the state’s insurance regulator that they would write the wind policies of insurers withdrawing from the state.”
Why is Fugate expressing this as a personal position about a Congressional proposal? That is not his job. It would be one thing if he thought FEMA could not do it for some reason, but that is not what he said. He said there is not an insurance problem in Florida. So why is Florida begging for a federal backstop?
Our bill would do more for a lot more Floridians than the state’s preferred solution. Federal government also would be better off selling risk-priced policies than taking liability for state policies. States are just as likely as insurers to push costs onto federal taxpayers if the government lets them.
When some make the “big time” they come down with a bad case of what’s known in state government as the “agency director’s disease” – usually because they believe their own press. Time takes care of it – one way or the other.
If the administration wasn’t suffering from a case of it, they might do something about it – but time will take care of that, too. If nothing else, we’ll soon run out of money and they’ll no longer be able to buy their way out of problems and have to start offering meaningful solutions.
Meanwhile, we await “the change we need” and be assured, we can’t afford to become one big Florida.
The response sounds very much like typical Obama Administration pandering to their Financial Service Industry base of support.
A very odd history and political past:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1883485,00.html