Released: April 03, 2007

Gulf insurance cost becomes 3rd storm

Source: Kathy Chu, USA Today

Robert Lynn Green Sr.’s sign stands outside his FEMA trailer here in the Lower 9th Ward [of New Orleans], a neighborhood flooded after Hurricane Katrina, proclaiming: “If You Build It They Will Come.”

It’s a vision of hope, of faith, of recovery. Yet that vision is ever more elusive for people here. In this once-vibrant community, still largely shuttered 19 months after Katrina, empty tracts stretch for blocks.

The rebuilding of Green’s neighborhood and others in Louisiana and Mississippi hinges on many factors, including the need for more construction aid. But perhaps nothing has slowed rebuilding more than the rising cost and fading availability of insurance.

Homeowners and business owners say their premiums have doubled or tripled since Katrina. Businesses are delaying rebuilding. Workers have been slow to return. Sky-high insurance has become what Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood calls the “third storm” to hit the region — behind Katrina itself and the legal disputes over insured damage.

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