[StBernard] Flood Insurance Questions

[Westley Annis]

-----Original Message----- See response below
From: deanjoemorgan at att.net

Wesley,

Could you please clarify which of the below statements are true. For flood
insurance, is your house valued at today"s replacement as one would suggest,
or only on depreciation? If I wanted a depreciated amount much less than the
cost of replacement, I would have been paying for much less flood insurance
all these years. Although my house was over 30 years old, I could have sold
it for at least $200,000. I paid premiums on what my house without the lot
was worth.

 

Another question also:

I see where benevolent Murphy Oil is donating $5million to the parish. This
isn't some sort of payoff??? I have not heard any more news in a while on
Murphy buying out the people in the oil spill area. The last I heard they
felt the spill only went as far as Rosetta or Marietta. I could clearly see
the oil on homes up until the last block before Paris Rd. I am affected
anyway on Lyndell, but it makes me nervous to hear Murphy stepping up to the
plate to help the parish but not taking care of the homeowners first. I
realize there's more than enough money to go around but why the hesitation? 
 
Thank you for any help you can give,
Dean Sergi
--------------------------

Dean,

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a definitive answer or either question.

As for flood insurance, I don't have a copy of a policy to examine it and
there is no sample language available on the Internet.  Best I could find is
victims of other floods that don't have anything good to say about flood
insurance.

See this recent story by ABC News:
http://tinyurl.com/7eqal

I don't know about the depreciation, since I've never heard anyone other
than Paul Perez mention it when talking about flood insurance and I'm not an
insurance agent, so I have no experience with this at all.

Near as I can tell, the best that will happen is flood will pay up to the
amount of damages they think you incurred.  Unfortunately, it does not seem
to be at replacement cost.

Best I can tell you to do is to try and contact your agent who may be able
to answer this question.  Perhaps Marvin Leblanc, a State Farm agent who is
also receiving these emails will chime in with an answer for us.

On the question of Murphy, the $5 million is to be distributed four ways -
-- $2 million to St. Bernard Parish to help fund the relief efforts in the
parish; 

-- $1 million to the St. Bernard Parish United Way; 

-- $1 million to the St. Bernard Parish Public School System; and, 

-- $1 million to help local businesses re-open and get people back to work. 

What exactly it means, I can't say for sure, but this is how I would read
it:

-- $2 million will go to parish government for "relief efforts", however
that is defined.

-- $1 million to the public school system, no idea how Doris Voitier &
school board will spend this

-- $1 million to local businesses to help them reopen - Don't know what the
process is for local businesses to apply for these funds.

-- $1 million to United Way - Feel good donation here, but then again, I'm
not a fan of the United Way so maybe I'm reading this one the wrong way.

Westley