FEMA - Welfare for repair?

[Armistead]

Anyone catch John Stossel on Fox stating that the govt. shouldn't be providing cheap flood insurance to induce people to build in areas where private insurance can't be had. Strossel, a millionaire, has collected 3 separate checks to rebuild his beach front home, one over $250K. He said his premiums are a mere few hundred dollars a year. Course this is a ploy to support Romney's past statements about defunding FEMA.

http://crooksandliars.com/news-hound...ecause-i-take-

[Tchocky]

There seems to be considerable hypocrisy on his part on this..


HOWEVER


Should we really be encouraging people to build and rebuild on ground that we now know is more likely to get hit with extreme weather than it was before?

I'd say it's long past time to rethink where we're all living. Nobody is seriously arguing that our climate is changing anymore.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Anyone catch John Stossel on Fox stating that the govt. shouldn't be providing cheap flood insurance to induce people to build in areas where private insurance can't be had. Strossel, a millionaire, has collected 3 separate checks to rebuild his beach front home, one over $250K. He said his premiums are a mere few hundred dollars a year. Course this is a ploy to support Romney's past statements about defunding FEMA.

http://crooksandliars.com/news-hound...ecause-i-take-

Collecting three separate checks does not necessarily mean he collected three times.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Anyone catch John Stossel...

Didn't need to. He said the same in his first book eight years ago.

Originally Posted by Tchocky

There seems to be considerable hypocrisy on his part on this..

No more than the hypocrisy on that website. Their writer said

So it seems that Stossel’s newly-found dislike of FEMA likely came at a time when only other people want to utilize it.

If the writer knew the first thing about Stossel he (and you) would have known that there's nothing "new-found" about it. He said then (2004) that yes, even though he opposed it, he too was a welfare queen. He figured that, principles or not, he would be a fool to turn down free money when someone contacted him first and offered it.

John Stossel got his start on ABC with the very first investigative TV news show, 20/20. He was praised to high heaven by Ralph Nader and friends when he went after corporate shenanigans. As soon as he turned that same camera on government games those same people started calling him a "traitor" and "corporate shill". In fact nothing changed but the target.

I would say in this case it's the Liberals who chide Stossel's "new-found" dislike who are the hypocrites, and you guys are buying right into it without even checking the facts.

[GoldenRivet]

I'm right in the middle of it right now.

I had one lady with a basement and first floor home. the basement was lived in by the daughter, the mother lived in the ground level.

There was no coverage for the basement which flooded. Insurance denied it, FEMA completely remodeled it.

catching on quickly to the fact that Uncle Sam would jump in and bail her out, when i presented the lady with her settlement check for covered damage on the ground level she asked me to also provide her with a denial letter.

confused, i asked why she would want a denial letter when i had paid her claim in full?

she openly and completely unashamedly said she wanted to present the denial letter to FEMA so they would think the insurance hadnt paid out on the remainder of the home so she could have FEMA remodel the house the way they did the basement.

i told her there was no way i could do that and left the residence.

When private insurance companies decide the risk outweigh the rewards of insuring in an area that is prone to flooding and tidal surge and the US Government turns around and insures those areas - it creates a situation that is easily taken advantage of.

the problem becomes that people take advantage of it on YOUR dime.

Trust me, it is absolutely heartbreaking to walk through someones home which had only days before been filled with 5 feet of water, taking pictures of their wrecked living spaces, their personal belongings strewn at nature's mercy now worthless. furnishings, decorations, belongings of all sorts caked with mud and sewage. then you have to tell them a review of their policy revealed no coverage for the type of water loss they have experienced. Knowing full well based on your experience that there are tens and tens of thousands of dollars in damages.

with tears in their eyes, they look to me and ask "what can we do?" or "what are we supposed to do now?"

its a tough situation... is there a genuine need for FEMA to insure? can it even be done without massive corruption and people taking advantage of it?

when a massive creek or river is only 30 feet from your back door and would only have to crest perhaps 5 feet vertically to flood your home - how could you not have flood insurance?

one frustrating thing i see ALL THE TIME is people just being unfamiliar with their homeowner's coverages. The policy language is written sort of like a EULA... but it is pretty clearly written comparitively. A person should be able to look at their policy and see where it clearly says "LOSSES NOT INSURED AGAINST:" and proceeds to list certain events that wont be covered, anyone evolved past a 3rd grade reading level can read it.

people will insist their policy covers a certain event when i show them black and white text that says other wise with their signatures on the document - they continue to argue that they thought otherwise. Sometimes, People just dont know what sort of coverage they've purchased and continue to pay for.

honestly, how many of you right now know whether or not the personal property in your vehicles right now Is or is not covered if the car burns to the ground? is it covered at all? if so what is the policy limit for personal property?

in the very least, with a tropical storm or hurricane 4 or 5 days away... those insurance document warrant at least a fleeting glance, in one healthy crap you could read it on the water-thrown.

The government has made the grave mistake of getting involved in Charity... perhaps keeping entire cities functioning that should have been ghost towns decades ago. and the more the government plays santa clause the more the people expect it.

it spirals out of control as we edge ever closer to an unrecoverable welfare charity state, and that just will not work

One small point there GR.
Renewal.
Every year no matter which company I have switched to the previous year will send out the "same" policy for me to renew, every year no matter which company it is the "same" policy will have "lost" coverage you had and added coverage you didn't want or need.
A lot of people think renewing the policy means they are simply renewing the same policy so you can see why they think they have the things covered.

[GoldenRivet]

Not only that but insurance companies can hold the right NOT to renew a policy, or to stop offering certain coverages.

A fun one to deal with for me: the insurance company I'm working for stopped offering flood insurance in 2010 and did not renew any flood policies. Customers were notified in writing of the change by September of 2010

Now in November if 2012 I run into people who thought they had flood coverage when, for over two years, they haven't.

Fun conversation there