No. of Recommendations: 5
Story from Dallas Morning News:
Here’s how you’re subsidizing insurance discounts for hurricane victims
Property insurance rates should rise along the Texas Gulf Coast Many property owners in the high-hazard coastal zone pay less for their insurance than they should, compared to the known risks and costs. And their discount could raise costs for the rest of us.
That’s because their homes or commercial structures are insured through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. After Hurricane Celia struck Corpus Christi in 1970, coastal property owners had trouble finding affordable insurance that included wind and hail coverage. Texas lawmakers responded by establishing the Texas Catastrophe Property Insurance Association, now TWIA, which offers only policies for wind and hail damage.
TWIA acts like a nonprofit insurance company. Properties insured by TWIA must lie within one of 14 counties or one section of Harris County. It is an insurer of last resort: Property owners must have been declined by at least one private-market insurer before applying to TWIA. The properties must be built to applicable building codes and meet a few other criteria. https://apple.news/AFoCUpY39Twi9N_u6DEhbdAAs it turns out when this Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (a government agency) doesn’t set rates high enough to cover losses, they turn to other funding sources, including private insurers who
do not insure these properties . Since raising rates along the coastline is unpopular with people in these counties, the agency is loathe to do that. In fact, while private rates across Texas have increase 20-30% over the past several years, the TWIA has increased rates only once, five years ago, by 5%.
Insurance is, by nature, a “socialistic” enterprise; not everybody who pays gets the benefit, some people benefit more than they pay for. But having non-participants in the market have to make up for losses for (largely) wealthy homeowners, well, that’s a good one.
