Category Archives: Weather

Bad Citizenship

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hurricane water damage“Citizens Insurance, or Citizens, is the popular name for government established, not-for-profit insurers in Florida and Louisiana,” Wikipedia explains. “[Here in] Florida, the insurer is Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. In Louisiana, the insurer is the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Both were established in their respective states as insurers of last resort…

“Neither of these is connected with for-profit insurers with similar names.”

Citizens is government-owned and, as other companies pull out of this market, not the insurer of last resort but the insurer of only resort for most of us.

JULY–After six years without a hurricane in Florida, Citizens had an cash surplus of about $6.1 billion. That’s about the same as the entire public debt of the nation of Honduras. As a matter of fact, it is more cash in hand than the national debt of several small African countries (Botswana, Gabon, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Nanibia, Uganda, or Zambia).

Citizens is trying everything it can think of to move its policies into Florida’s private insurance market while hanging on to our money. The other insurers discussed what to do in a back room meeting in July: They want to require Citizens to pay the private companies billions of dollars to take over the policies, and they will raise premiums.

AUGUST–With customers complaining about getting hit with higher premiums, Citizens announced they will revise their inspection program aimed at raising rates^H^H^H “helping prevent wind damage to homes.”

NOVEMBER–The state-backed insurance programs have angered hundreds of thousands of policyholders. The outcry from consumers followed a mind-boggling $137 million in premium increases. More than 175,000 property owners have already seen their premiums skyrocket by an average of $810 after an inspection. (My premiums here had already risen over $1,000 — about 48% — from 2006 through 2011, before my own inspection.)

I paid Citizens almost $3,300 last year. I paid the same amount this year because that’s the figure on their invoice. That was incorrect, but we’ll get back to that.

Citizens hires local inspectors rather than send their own employees out. I had put the inspection off all summer because I wasn’t here but I couldn’t do it forever because their default position is “no inspection no ‘discounts'” for our previously known hurricane protections, so my rates would get even worse.

The inspector, a nice fellow named Jose, took pictures of the roof straps and a piece of painter’s tape on a rafter on which he had marked nail locations, the window shutters, the door covers, and the roof.

Jose told me that, after Hurricane Wilma, he repaired his own loss by replacing (not just overhauling) his roof. He did the work himself so he never pulled a building permit. Citizens dropped him because they claimed he had not done anything on the roof since 1992. It took Jose six months and a lawyer to get covered again.

He strongly recommended that I get a copy of the inspection report from Citizens.

hurricane wind damageI did check to see that Citizens had properly credited my premium check to the account, only to find they have bumped my rates to over FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS per year. And put me on a “payment plan” in which my three grand check was merely the first installment. Good to have a government-run insurer helping us.

I talked with my agent. Looks like Citizens took away a $1,400 deduction for roof strapping and shutters. I expect to get that back. Sometime. See, they have to process the inspection which will take another 30-45 days. Then deny it. Then argue with my agent. Then argue with my lawyer.

That all means my policy will go up “only” $500 no matter what.

Most Florida homeowners pay Citizens far more for windstorm insurance alone than they pay in property taxes.

If you truly believe Obamacare will help you, understand that Citizens is the face of government-run insurance.

The Real Global Weirding

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It is 104° in Phoenix today. It is 84° in the Keys today. Heck, it could be 64° in North Puffin today.

Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey’s comments in a much delayed podcast of NPR’s Science Friday just gave me an aha moment.

Mentioning NPR cost me the conservative vote. Rufus may never speak to me again.

Professor Leakey helped me realize exactly why Al Gore has led us down the wrong primrose path.

Mentioning Mr. Gore cost me the liberal vote. Paul “Buster” Door may never speak to me again.

We aren’t facing a question of Global Warming. We aren’t facing a question of Global Cooling. We aren’t even facing a question of Global Climate Change.

The problem isn’t Global Weirding.

Of course the globe is warming. Or cooling.

The problem is people. People who would leverage the fact that you don’t know the science to coerce you do something bad for you.

Hubris.

Hurricane AndrewSee, Mr. Gore and his cohort don’t care as much about Global Weirding as they care about what steps we take to control Global Weirding. They think the solution is the Big Government answer to control people because obviously people cause Global Weirding.

Horse Puckey.

Of course there is Global Warming. Of course there is Global Cooling. Of course there is Global Climate Change. Of course there is Global Weirding. Or Global transitioning. This little blue marble is always warming or cooling or in transition.

It’s the Sun, stupid!

Convincing new evidence demonstrates that Al Gore, the IPCC, and other global warming doomsayers screwed us while they were having on with the pooch. The landmark CLOUD findings at CERN show that cosmic rays and the sun (not human activities) are the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

Professor Leakey reminded me of the historical record. Forget who caused it, he said. Let’s look at the prehistoric record and recognize that climate change has happened before and because it’s happened before we know the scale of possibilities and the change we’re looking at is not unlike changes we’ve had before. The difference is we’re now eight billion people. Before there were less than a million. This is going to impact. Rising sea levels today will be very different than rising sea levels 500,000 years ago.

That brings us to three most important facets of this discussion:

  • Al Gore is a fraud. He may have created the political science of Global Warming but he apparently knows less about the fact-based science than my friend Scott, a cartoonist in Alaska.
  • Rush Limbaugh is a fraud. He is so caught up in his disbelief in science (because scientists push the evolution of Man) that he cannot accept any scientific statements about Global Climate Change.
  • NASA is a fraud. Between James Hansen driving Global Warming at Goddard and Charles F. Bolden, Jr, driving Global Warming at Congressional budget talks, NASA has shown they don’t care about the science. They care only about the money.

The lowest temps in the last dozen years occurred in 2007 and 2011. Last year was globally cool despite what it felt like here in North Puffin. On the other hand, 2004 and 2010 were the hottest. So what?

Hubris. Do you really trust a politician who can’t predict tomorrow’s weather can forecast the climate a decade from now? Or a century? Do you really believe a politician who can’t bring democracy to a few square miles of desert can terraform an entire planet?

Follow the money.

It doesn’t much matter what you think of which politician usurping the science. It doesn’t even matter whether you think the science says it’s going to get hotter or the science says it’s going to get colder. We know Earth will get hotter. We know Earth will get colder. Sooner or later.

The only question left to resolve is simple: If the seas are really going to rise 5′ in the next 50 years, Why the heck are you spending all my money assessing blame instead of building a bloody dike?

This editorial is the reason Al Gore invented the Internet.