Archive for the ‘flood insurance’ Category

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US Tsunami Damage Exceeds $50 Million, Estimates Say

March 14th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in earthquake insurance, flood insurance

While the United States did not see anything close to the damage that continues to worsen in Japan, but estimates say that tsunami waves that followed Friday’s earthquake have caused more than $50 million in damage in the western part of the country.

Governor Neil Abercrombie, in Hawaii, issued an emergency proclamation that will allow his state to seek federal aid, after harbor facilities and boats were damaged, and homes and hotels were flooded.

Ed Teixeria, vice director of Hawaii’s State Civil Defense says the initial property damage estimate for state-owned property is at least $3 million. Privately-owned property is still being assessed.

According to Teixeria the piers in Keehi Lagoon and a small harbor in Haleiwa, both on Oahu, were among the areas suffering the most damage, while seven homes were flooded, and one dragged out to sea in Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island of Hawaii. As well, he said, nine cars were also flooded there, with one dragged into the bay, and the commercial side of the harbor also saw damage.

In Oregon, Governor John Kitzhaber and U.S. Senator Jeff Merkely also requested disaster declarations, in order to begin recovery programs for residents. Oregon officials estimated an excess of $10 million in damage at Ports Orford, Gold Beach, and Brookings.

As well, a man from Bend, OR, who ignored warnings to avoid the beach, was washed out to sea while attempting to take pictures of the tsunami waves.

California also saw damage. Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in Del Norte, Humbolt, San Mateo, and Santa Cruz counties. There was at least $17 million in damage to the Santa Cruz harbor with 50 damaged boats, and 17 that completely sank. That estimate, however, does not include the “full extent of damage and the impact to personal property,” where are still unknown.

The Santa Cruz harbor has been designated a Coast Guard Safety Zone, and has been closed to all vessel traffic until oil and debris removal has been completed, and pollution and public safety issues have been addressed, along with the removal of any navigational hazards.

Japan’s earthquake and tsunami losses are estimated at between $15 billion to $35 billion.

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Fargo Resident Told To Brace for Flooding

January 26th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in flood insurance, homeowners insurance, insurance news

Officials in Fargo, ND informed residents earlier this week that it’s time to begin preparing for another major flooding along the Red River. It is anticipated that this will be third such spring flood in a row.

On Monday, during the first public planning session for possible flooding, Mayor Dennis Walaker said, “I don’t think anybody is ready for this. Not three in a row.”

A recent flood outlook report from the National Weather Service shows a 20% chance of the river surpassing the record crest in Fargo, ND and it’s sister city Moorhead, MN set in 2009, and a 50% chance it will beat last year’s crest, which was the sixth-highest on records.

Fargo officials said that beginning next month they’ll be spending time in a local warehouse nicknamed “Sandbag Central, filling sandbags. The city currently has about 370,000 filled, shrink-wrapped sandbags in storage, but in mid-February there will likely be a call for volunteers to fill an additional 2 million of them, according to Bruce Grubb, who is coordinating the sandbagging effort. Between March 1st and 15th last year, volunteers filled a million sandbags, just in time for the river to crest on March 20th.

Over the last several years, the city of Fargo has bought and removed dozens of homes from flood-prone parts of the city, and officials are currently in negotiations to acquire about ten more houses before the river has a chance to flood this year, said city administrator Pat Zavoral.

Zavoral explained, “It’s up to the property owners to decide. None of these are condemnations. It’s all volunteering.”

The record crest of 2009 came in at almost 41 feet. This year, city officials are preparing to protect structures below 44 feet with sandbags, levees, and other flood-control methods. Some neighborhoods are requesting help with the construction of “hescoes,” interlocking steel-framed containers filled with sand. April Walker, the city’s senior engineer said that residents in one neighborhood had no objections when informed that hescoes would make a worse mess of their yards than sandbags.

She added, “They’re just darn tired of bagging.”

Fargo city officials plan to meet with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers later this week, to review the technical aspects of levee construction, according to city engineer Mark Bittner. He said, ““Is it time to make some decisions? I’m not sure. But it’s certainly time to plan.”

Source: Insurance Journal.

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Oahu Residents: Buy Flood Insurance!

January 3rd, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in flood insurance

Property owners in Oahu, Hawaii, are being urged by emergency management officials to purchase flood insurance at current rates, before new flood maps and higher prices go into effect later this month.

FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) says update rate maps for the National Flood Insurance Program are due to be implemented on January 19th.

Parts of Hawaii affected by the new maps include Hawaii Kai, Ala Moana-Kakaako, Ewa Beach, and Makaha.

Property owners in areas designated as special flood hazard zones, and who hold federally backed mortgage are required to purchase flood insurance policies.

Business and homeowners who purchase flood insurance policies prior to January 19th will be able to take advantage of lower premiums, giving them a potential savings on hundreds of dollars a year.

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California Storms Cause $10 Million in Damage, More to Come

December 29th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in flood insurance, insurance news

Californians who pay extra for flood insurance must be thanking their lucky stars this month, because even though temperatures have warmed up a bit, easing the rain and snow that have been drenching (and blanketing) the Golden State for a week, the National Weather Service was predicting yesterday that there was more to come.

Last week, California was deluged by heavy rains that, according to early estimates, have already racked up more than $10 million in damage, and resulted in a state of emergency being declared in eleven counties, including Los Angeles, Orange, and Santa Barbara. 70 homes were damaged by the rains and five more were destroyed, in Highland, and so far there have been two deaths because of cars falling into waterways, as well as other storm-related traffic fatalities.

Meanwhile, there are other Western states also facing potential rain damage. In Hawaii, flash flood watches were issued through yesterday afternoon for Oahu, Kauai and Nihau, by the National Weather Service.

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2010 Hurricane Season, Not Much Landfall, But Still Active

October 7th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in flood insurance, insurance news

Reuters is reporting today that even though there’ve been a lot of hurricanes in the Atlantic this season, the lack of any major landfalls will make most people consider it a quiet year.

Before the season began on June 1st, many hurricane forecasters had predicted a high likelihood that a major hurricane would make landfall on somewhere along the east coast of the United States, but this has not happened, and with less than a month left in the season, and the most active part winding down, the chance of any major impact on the mainland of the United States or any of its “energy interests” in the Gulf of Mexico are even less probable.

Bill Read, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center told Reuters, “If you just use (U.S.) landfall as a criteria and did not pay attention to the numbers, you’d think this was a really quiet year.” He continued, “A couple of relatively minor impacts and some flooding and that’s what we’d have to show for it.”

Read also said that this year would still be classified as yet another exceptionally busy season, it’s just that the U.S. lucked out.

The closest the U.S. had to a major landfall was Hurricane Earl, the Category 4 storm that hovered about 100 miles off of North Carolina and southern New England in September, Read said, adding, “That’s a relatively narrow escape if you look at it from the global perspective.” He also reminds us that there were a significant number of flood and mudslide deaths in Mexico and Central America due to hurricanes.

In an average season, there are about ten named storms, of which six become hurricanes. This year, there have been fifteen named storms so far, including Otto, which began forming as a subtropical storm over the Western Atlantic yesterday. Otto poses no immediate threat to land.

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One-year Extension to Flood Insurance Program

September 22nd, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in flood insurance, homeowners insurance, insurance news

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a month since we reported that the National Flood Insurance Program was on hold, but today’s report on the program is even better than yet another 30- or 60-day extension. Instead, we’re delighted to report that last night, in a unanimous vote, the United State Senate passed a measure extending the National Flood Insurance Program until September 30th, 2011. The measure still has to pass the House of Representatives, but since they passed a measure in July which extended it for five years, there is hope that this will be the political equivalent of a slam-dunk.

If, however, the House does not pass the Senate’s measure, the program, which covers more than five million Americans, will expire next Thursday, September 30, 2010.

Even with a year extension, however, the Senate measure is much shorter than the reauthorization requested by insurance companies and insurance agents, and it doesn’t include any of the verbiage meant to reform the program, which is currently operating at a deficit of $18 billion.

According to Marguerite Tortorello, senior vice president, public affairs, for the insurance group the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), “This does not change the need for a long-term reauthorization that includes fundamental reform of the program and prevents the patchwork of short-term fixes that have allowed the NFIP to lapse four times this year.”

The vice president for federal government affairs of another organization, the Independent Insurance Agents Brokers of America, John Prible, also commented, saying, “Unfortunately, recent years have provided ample evidence of the destruction left behind by floods that highlight the urgency and importance of extending the NFIP. With the program set to once again expire Sept. 30, the Big ‘I’ urges the House to follow the Senate’s lead and immediately adopt the Senate-passed legislation.”

This year’s four extensions are not the first the NFIP has seen. It’s actually been operating under a series of such extension for two years now, and every time an extension lapsed, new policies could not be written, which left new homeowners with protection, and delayed thousands of real estate transactions every day in flood-prone areas.

The latest one-year extension (S3814) was sponsored by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and co-sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Tex., Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

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Simple Home Maintenance Can Help You Avoid Water Damage, Travelers Says

September 21st, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in advice and how-tos, flood insurance, homeowners insurance, insurance specialists

Last week, the Insurance Journal reported on some interesting survey results from Travelers insurance. It seems that even though most homeowners are more afraid of fire damage, most homes – even if they’re not in a coastal or riverfront location – are ten times more likely to be damaged by water.

While no one is suggesting that homeowners should be able to control the weather, there are a few home maintenance tasks that can help decrease the likelihood of serious water damage. After analyzing data from a large number of claims filed by Travelers policyholders in North Carolina, the insurer’s claim and risk management professionals have created a list of easy steps homeowners can take to help prevent many non-weather-related water damage causes. Here’s a list of the top four:

Leaks from washing machine hoses: Washing machine hoses should be inspected annually and replaced every five years – or immediately, if there are any signs of cracking or bulging.

Leaky plumbing around water heaters: Plumbing should be inspected annually and repaired if there are any signs of leaks or corrosion. When possible, water heaters should be installed in an area with floor drains to minimize damage if leaks should occur.

Leaks from refrigerator ice machines: Ice maker connections, usually located behind the refrigerator, should be inspected annually and hoses replaced if they appear cracked or corroded.

Clogged drain lines on air conditioning units: Air conditioning drain lines should be checked yearly.

Ron Stephens, Regional Vice President for Travelers reiterates, “When considering annual household cleaning projects, it’s a great time to inspect and perform maintenance on household systems and appliances. Checking washing machine hoses, ice maker connections and the plumbing around water heaters are a few simple actions you can take to prevent both damages and a lot of headaches.”

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