Group Looks for Solutions to Insurance Crisis

The Homeowners Hurricane Insurance Initiative hopes to make things better for people like Ken and Phyllis Wallace. The saw their wind damage coverage through ALFA cut off last June. On a fixed income, they didn't bother shopping for new wind coverage, because they say they couldn't afford it anyway.

HHII has supported a proposal that passed the House last year. Sponsored by now former Mississippi congressman Gene Taylor, and co-sponsored by Alabama Representative Jo Bonner--the proposal sought to have federal wind coverage grouped with flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program. The bill died in the senate--Taylor was not re-elected.

HHII's Michelle Kurtz sought to get Alabama Senator Richard Shelby to pick up the torch on that idea at his Monday Town Hall meeting in Fairhope. But he told her that he would not support it because he thought it would cost the government a trillion dollars.

Kurtz says the Senator is grossly misinformed. She says the Congressional Budget Office called the bill neutral, meaning it wouldn't cost taxpayers anything.

While they hope to gain support on that idea, they are working through the Alabama Legislature on a Senate Bill to make insurance companies open the books to reveal historic data on premiums paid by people along the coast, versus those paid by folks who live in northern counties. Kurtz says the state average premium paid by property owners is around $850 a year--except of course in Mobile and Baldwin Counties. HHII says the historic data, based on data used with short term catastrophy models that are used now to determine premiums, could show a severe disparity. She also warns that the short term catastrophe models show that with the track of hurricanes northward and subsequent damage, plus tornadoes that happen there--insurers are realizing folks in northern counties should probably paying more.

HHII is meeting at !st Baptist Church on Bellingrath Road in Theodore Thursday at 7pm. They welcome homeowners concerned about the insurance crisis. Follow the link to their website for more information about the organization.