Risk & Business

Image via Wikipedia Based upon an article yesterday in www.MarketWatch.com, this year's Atlantic hurricane season could be "extreme". The forecaster quoted in the article, Jo Bastardi , chief long-range meteorologist and hurricane forecaster at AccuWeather .com, stated that this year's hurricane season would more closely resemble 2008 than 2009. If you remember, in 2008 Hurricane Ike smacked the coastline of Louisiana and Texas , accounting for losses of approximately $11.5 billion. We've spoken about this before, time to take a look at flood coverage before the possible event, rather than lamenting the lack of it afterwards.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife My previous posts were discussing hurricanes, particularly Hurricane Bill. In case it wasn't picked up on it's important to realize that the one coverage important to a business owner close to a large body of water (ocean) is FLOOD . If there is an active hurricane forecast it's important to realize that no amount of $$ will get you coverage that day. Get your flood insurance in place now, let's not wait until it's too late.

Image via Wikipedia Based upon the most recent information available, the National Weather Service is cutting back it's forecast for this year's Atlantic hurricane season. The agency is citing the calming effects of El Niño contributing to their revised forecast. They do warn however that all those along the coast should continue to keep their guard up since there is always the possibility of a major storm cropping up unexpectedly.

Image via Wikipedia An article I read recently in National Underwriter pointed out a potential gap in coverage for many contractors. It seems that some drywall used in the repair of homes from damage caused by Hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes/storms, has been the culprit in lawsuits being filed on the behalf of homeowners whose homes had the been repaired using the specific type of drywall that was purchased through a German firm from China. It seems that drywall gave off a strong odor and caused damage to electrical equipment and copper piping when exposed to heat and/or moisture. The potential gap in coverage is the lack of environmental coverage in the contractor's policies. The attorneys are filing against everyone from the importer to the contractors. You can't cover every potential claim but this illustrates how important it is perform a proper risk management survey when putting together coverage for your business.

Image via Wikipedia With Hurricane Gustav thankfully having passed through and done it's worst, it's looking like the last few months of the hurricane season are going to be quite active. As of this writing there are 4 more storms forming in the Atlantic, Hanna, Ike, Josephine and Karina. The current estimate of insurable losses from the damage caused by Gustav are currently between $2 and $4.5 billion. I mention the insured loss estimate because currently there is a move afoot by the federal government to expand government control of disaster relief and also increased federal disaster insurance coverage. With more federal involvement and more federal dollars spent for disaster coverage, take a look again at the numbers I previously mentioned regarding estimated insurable losses from Hurricane Gustav, came ashore as a Cat 2 and quickly became a Cat 1, and extrapolate the numbers of a busy hurricane season. The private insurance market has done the job it is supposed to do...