Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Insuring for a Hurricane


The Houston Chronicle's SciGuy has a real eye-popper of an article about hurricanes and the insurance industry. Seems like the major home and commercial insurers made a ton of money even in the aftermath of Katrina and the last two years were exceptionally mild for hurricane landfalls in the U.S. Wouldn't that make the insurance rates go down?

Heck no, they're boosting them up more every year! The chart shows the Risk Management (RMS) prediction, some expert historical information from the thinkers, and what the industry actually paid out in 2006 and 2007. Note that the RMS is a whopping 40 percent over the historical or "realistic" levels. And they want more, while dropping coastal insurance policies like rocks.

I sure hope they're saving me some money in case I need to make a claim if the Big One comes to SPI. Yeah, dream on, teenage queen ...

Anyway, the global warming scientists or frustrated because we should have tons of more destructive hurricanes, like 2005. The predictors such as experts like Bill Gray got egg all over their faces for missing the boat so bad lately (while claiming he's still the best in the world, of course!). Just to show you that hurricanes defy all logic, we have a subtropical cyclone near Puerto Rico called Olga.

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