The Next Shock For Texans: Insurance Often Doesn’t Cover Floods

A complete assessment of the property damage wrought by Hurricane Harvey will take weeks, if not months, to deliver. But as the first disaster victims return to their homes, some are being forced to confront an unfortunate reality: Gaps in their homeowners’ insurance that will leave them on the hook for thousands of dollars’ worth of damages.
According to analytics firm CoreLogic, hundreds of thousands of affected residents in Texas and Louisiana aren’t insured for flooding damage. The firm estimated that residential flooding has caused $25 billion to $37 billion in damage spread across 70 counties in Texas and Louisiana hit by Harvey. Of that, about 70% – or $18 billion to $27 billion – is uninsured.
Scientists have confirmed that Harvey caused a “1-in-1,000-year flood” and that the total cost of property damage and lost productivity could be as high as $190 billion.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 2, 2017.