Slabbed. One of many first issues anyone may discover from Hurricane Katrina’s path alongside the Mississippi Coast was the variety of constructions that have been a complete loss. After pulling off the particles, these constructions have been famous as “slabbed.”
Whereas social media journalism was nonetheless in its infancy, one such regional reporting effort concerning the plight of Hurricane Katrina policyholders was “Slabbed.” In Slabbed Retains Pounding on Coverage Protection Issues and the Litigation Discovery Coverage in Southern Mississippi, I wrote about Slabbed and its necessary position to these impacted by Hurricane Katrina and struggling by means of the hardships of insurance coverage litigation:
Coastal Mississippi policyholders are nicely served by the day by day and in-depth reporting by Slabbed. Writing day by day for this weblog is time consuming; posting two to 5 in-depth discussions every day should border on a full-time job. Recently, Slabbed’s posts have highlighted two necessary points concerning insurance coverage protection and insurance coverage protection litigation in Mississippi. One, if insurance coverage firms need to pay nothing below the all-risk coverage due to the anti-concurrent causation clause, a brand new kind coverage is required–even when the federal government has to sponsor it. Two, the insurance coverage trade is successful the lawsuits in Southern Mississippi as a result of they’re successful the invention battle over key info.
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I merely would not have time to learn Slabbed on a regular basis. But, I’ve no hesitation in suggesting that many can be taught an awesome deal from the posts. The concepts are exceedingly authentic. I’m sure that these within the insurance coverage trade dislike Slabbed as a result of it does tend to demonize the trade and people supporting their established order. Think about if all of your greatest buddies, neighbors, and household needed to endure monetary damage attributable to insurance coverage not paying following a devastating disaster like Hurricane Katrina. I think about your rhetoric in direction of insurers and their brokers wouldn’t be very complimentary both.
Touring within the fire-stricken areas of the Los Angeles wildfires additionally has “slabbed’ whole loss constructions, which appear to go on perpetually. It’s merely arduous to consider. I believed that if I ever used my California Bar license in a disaster scenario, it could be in response to an earthquake and never an city wildfire that destroyed over 15,000 constructions.
What’s the one subject 95% of all these poor people suffered on account of a complete loss, leaving them with solely a slab? They’re underinsured for the construction danger. The breadth and devastating penalties of the underinsurance plague don’t totally emerge till these mass whole loss conditions happen.
Actually days earlier than the Los Angeles blazes began, I warned about this looming disaster – now a actuality in California – in The Looming Homeownership Disaster: A Ticking Time Bomb of Underinsurance, Insurance coverage Premiums, Taxes, Systemic Losses, and Homeowners Not In a position to Pay for Prices of Possession. Now, we’ve got a gradual stream of wildfire purchasers coming to us with points concerning underinsurance.
Hurricane Katrina is clearly on my thoughts as its twentieth anniversary is upon us. We did some crucial work following that storm, which I’m very happy with. Now, I’m spending a whole lot of my time working with our agency’s California-based attorneys on one of the crucial novel occasions in our lifetime. Who actually would consider 15,000 constructions burning to the bottom in Los Angeles in 2025? Mass city fires have been over within the nineteenth century till lately.
The issue is that we’re not studying sufficient classes to forestall lots of the identical points from repeating themselves. It’s nearly as if the insurance coverage trade says, “Properly, that’s simply the best way it’s” with out attempting to plan a technique to repair the insurance coverage product and make it work higher for everybody.
One yr in the past, in “Why Are Policyholders So Regularly Underinsured within the Occasion of a Whole Loss? What Can Repair the Underinsurance Downside?” I wrote about options specialists made on easy methods to appropriate the underinsurance drawback. I famous the necessary position of insurance coverage commissioners in doing one thing because the insurance coverage trade appears to need to do nothing about this vital subject:
Each insurance coverage regulator and insurance coverage commissioner ought to completely learn this work and take motion. The underinsurance drawback is profound and impacts not solely policyholders but in addition raises its ugly head when co-insurance is taken into account and raised in the course of the claims course of. It arises in litigation when policyholders ask me what accountability insurers and insurance coverage brokers have when whole loss constructions should not near having sufficient insurance coverage protection for rebuilding. Underinsurance is solely not good for anyone.
Rather a lot has modified in 20 years, and far continues to be needlessly the identical.
Thought For The Day
“Though the world is stuffed with struggling, additionally it is filled with the overcoming of it.”
—Helen Keller