Now I know who I covered with all my premiums...had minimal damage in those hurricanes , couple thousands, and didn't get a raazoo...so now increased my deductible 3 fold and hardly made a dent in the reduced premiums.Have to increase my coverage because of Citizens new policy. The way I understand it is that Citizens WONT give cover if the shingle roof is over 25 years old, which basically means that there is no coverage as they are the insurer of last resort..
Two points: First, weather forecasting, as advanced as it is, is excellent for the next 48 hours, very good for the next 72 hours, then uncertainty builds not linearly with time, but exponentially, so even 5 day forecasts have quite a bit of uncertainty on the 4th and 5th day. It now looks as though Ike will go down the middle of Cuba, likely missing Florida and the Keys. But it will be the middle of next week before we have a fairly reliable picture of where it will make landfall in the US. Second, Had the City of New Orleans, which is mostly below sea level, thought to only issue building permits for new construction with the lowest finished floor level at a minimum of 3 feet above sea level (easily and relatively inexpensively accomplished in much of New Orleans, as much of it is only a few feet below sea level, hundreds of millions, if not billions would have been saved. Nearly all the new construction in the Northeast quadrant of New Orleans was built on slabs at grade level, and you can see the high water mark just below the first story window sills. The stupidity of this boggles the mind, but the inept, and hopelessly corrupt, local government is unfortunately, no stranger to stupidity. (It would also be helpful to fix Levee leaks when reported rather than waiting 30 years.) Older construction is 100% on raised foundations and even where there was 4 feet of water in the streets, this was saved. There are some areas where the water was at roof top levels, and obviously these areas should not be built on at all. I does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how to build in New Orleans, but it does require common sense. Of course if the river levee fails, and it might if a category five scores a direct hit, then that's a different story. I am reminded that there are now two islands off of Gulfport, Mississippi (East and West Ship Islands) whereas before Camille there was only one.