Sandy victims to Rep. Pallone: flood insurance payouts delayed, less than expected

Star Ledger ^

[SMGFan]

After months of waiting, the letter finally arrived last week from Scott McQuarrie’s flood insurance company. Attached to it, he said, was a check for $76,000.

That’s the money McQuarrie said he’s getting to rebuild his Union Beach home destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. It was less than the $125,000 estimate a contractor gave him to restore everything to the way it once was. And it was far less than the $250,000 limit he said he had on his flood insurance policy.

McQuarrie, a 45-year-old backhoe operator and married father of one, was apoplectic today as he related his experience to Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.). “Why are they putting me through this extra unnecessary evil after what I’ve been through?”

Such were the stories the congressman heard on a visit to Union Beach’s borough hall. A week after Gov. Chris Christie blasted the National Flood Insurance Program as a “disgrace” because thousands of shore residents still haven’t received flood insurance checks, Pallone came on his own fact-finding mission to hear from frustrated and exhausted homeowners. He also previously sent a letter to Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the NFIP, demanding that the agency cut the red tape causing delays in payouts.

[SMGFan]

Any Sandy victims at State of the Union?

[RetiredTexasVet]

They are paying the reduced amounts to try keeping them from rebuilding. Part of the Agenda 21 program to force them out.

[Lurker]

NFIP should be abolished entirely. If people want to build in flood plains, fine. But there’s no reason the American taxpayer should be on the hook for it.

[vette6387]

“NFIP should be abolished entirely. If people want to build in flood plains, fine. But there’s no reason the American taxpayer should be on the hook for it.”

If it is indeed an insurance policy, irrespective of who runs it, it should pay out per the policy’s prescribed limits. I suspect though, that with the government involved, it isn’t really a true “insurance policy” and whatever “premiums” the government has collected have already been spent on some politicians wet dream. Again, this is an area where the government should butt out. And I agree with you, there just isn’t any way the taxpayers should pay for someone’s losses here. Then again, I feel the same way about Katrina and New Orleans. If people want to live in a toilet bowl, they have to expect to get flushed down the drain occasionally.