Court Rules Against Katrina Homeowners

AP via SFGate ^ | 8/2/7

[dawn53]

The exact reason I have both Flood Insurance (I live in a no evac or flood zone, but still about 2 miles from the coast) and State Farm homeowner’s (which just raised our rate 75% this year...thank you very much, even though there were no hurricanes for the last 2 year in our area, we’ve never made a claim in 20 years, and the state enacted a plan whereby they could supposedly lower rates.)

The Flood Insurance people and State Farm would no doubt “fight it out” in court, about who was responsible to pay, but in the end (and it might take years) I figure I’d get reimbursement.

[maica]

Surely there must be a clause that says I don’t have to buy Flood Insurance to be insured for a flood!.......

&&&&

Especially if I live in a house built below water level in a town situated on a body of water. /s

[jwparkerjr]

I was all up and down the Gulf Coast in the days immediately following Katrina. I am a photographer and was doing work for one of the big (non-Halliburton) companies who do post-storm clean up and etc. Few houses were blown away. They had lots of wind damage, roofs gone and that sort of thing, but when you got inside the part left standing you saw the level to which the water had risen during the surge and flooding. Along the coast proper there were lots of homes and structures simply gone, but you found them in mostly large pieces up against, and on top of, homes just a few hundred yards inland where the flooding had dumped them.

[ozzymandus]

Let me get this straight. I have to have FLOOD insurance to be covered against a FLOOD?? Fire insurance won’t cover it??
Wow, good thing I live on a hill.

[antiRepublicrat]

You live in a fish bowl well below sea level. You may even live across the street from a levee that’s holding back millions of tons of water. You got home insurance without flood coverage.

“DUH!” is the only way to properly express it.

[vetsvette]

“So, the policies mean what they say they mean? What a concept!”

It will never fly with the leftists — in their world “fair” equals “their constituents win.” What the contract says or how the law reads is immaterial.

[antiRepublicrat]

Although - I have to say I call the bullsh*t alarm on situations where the house was blown away by wind, then the land was flooded, but the insurance company says “sorry - flood damage” and refuses to pay up.

I believe someone already won a case against State Farm about this one.

[DreamsofPolycarp]

both are a flood according to the verbiage in the CONTRACT otherwise known as a homeowners policy.

[Gondring]

For insurance cases, the courts rule like this. For cases involving the US Constitution, they like to play a little more fast and loose with the language.

Actually, this was an appeal overturning of a fast and loose decision by Judge Stanwood R. Duval, Jr., a Clinton appointee who decided to issue an injunction against "Choose Life" license plates because there were no "Choose Abortion" plates available (Planned Parenthood filed the suit). That was overturned unanimously, and I'm glad that Judge King's panel overturned this one.

This type of rational judgment is probably why Judge King was praised by Justice Renquist and recently honored.

[Redbob]

"Article IV of the Constitution prevents the government from altering a contract. This should be a no-brainer, but you never know these days."

State courts of course are a different matter, as the morons in Mississippi amply demonstrated.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Here in GA we have a Supreme Court decision which is among my favorites. A direct quote: “those with the ability to read, have the duty to read” [the contract]. The mere existence of a Flood Insurance program provided by the federal government and no private insurers essentially puts you on notice that a) your private insurance carrier excludes flood damage and b) you need to get Federally issued flood insurance to cover flood damage. This attempt to post facto rewrite contracts of insurance presented the danger of eliminating all forms of private insurance in the Gulf States.

[ops33]

I just read Article IV and I’m a little puzzled by your comment. Could you please clarify?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

My bad. Article II, Section 10 says:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

Besides which they were arguing that the damage was caused by "wind driven water", a covered hazard, not "flood waters", a hazard not covered. So they weren't asking the court to modify the contract, just to make an extremely favorable (to them) finding of fact.