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Insurance is Great — If Your Company Remains Solvent

Irma will tax insurers' ability to pay.

The first disaster risk mitigation measure individuals, governments and businesses can have is a good insurance policy for the risks that they face. The challenge comes when there are too many claims, all coming at once, and not enough cash reserves to pay all the claims. This happened before in Florida for Hurricane Andrew. See this New York Times article, Irma a problem for Florida Insurance Companies.

Note that Florida has an emergency reserve of $17 billion to cover losses — an enviable position that most states do not have and have not worked to have. 

There will always be some shakeout following large disasters like Irma and Harvey. Which direction those changes go — is anyone's guess.

I heard former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg mentioned on Meet the Press today that it is only in the immediate aftermath of a disaster that the window for making building code changes comes open. Wait six months and nothing will happen as opposition forces marshal their lobbying to stop efforts to make a community more disaster resilient. How true a statement is that! Building back fast and stupid is a national tradition.

Recovery Diva shared the link to the Times article. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.