Discriminatory Coastal Insurance Hikes Need to Stop
Corpus Christi Caller Times
Editorial Posted May 24, 2012 at 3 a.m.
CORPUS CHRISTI — We would never be cavalier about this coastal region’s risk of hurricanes. It’s important to Corpus Christi’s safety and survival to remember Hurricane Celia. It’s also important to Corpus Christi’s economic safety and survival to remind the rest of the state that Celia occurred in 1970, when Richard Nixon was in his first term and there was still a Vietnam war.
Celia inspired creation of what is now known as the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, originally a tool to keep the coast insured. Unfortunately, it has evolved into what amounts to a strong-arming of coastal insurance customers by the rest of the state.
The association last week approved its third 5 percent rate hike in three years. It also is considering additional increases based on how far a property is from the shore. That proposal amounts to a divide-and-conquer approach to dealing with the people in the 14-county risk pool because it gives the folks farther from shore incentive to be less opposed. But as Georgia Neblett of Port Aransas, the only member of the association’s board to vote against the rate hike, pointed out, basing rates on distance from shore is not an accurate reflection of risk because “the wind will not stop blowing between Port Aransas and Calallen.”
State Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, went as far to say that maybe it’s time to ditch the association and find a more equitable solution. We think there’s merit to that. “It appears that TWIA’s main role has turned into raising rates on the coastal communities as opposed to serving them,” Hunter said.
We agree with state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, who, backed by Hunter and other Coastal Bend lawmakers, warned the Texas Department of Insurance that the tiered rate proposal amounts to taxation without representation. Texas Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman has not appointed one of the board positions reserved for coastal residents and, until she does, any vote on this matter by the board indeed will be taxation without representation.
The recent hikes are an attempt to replenish the fund after the $2.3 billion in damage from Hurricane Ike, plus the mismanaged mess the association made in processing the claims. A three-year run of 5 percent hikes puts a chill on business where some of the state’s most important economic machinery exists. Considering that it happened along with the emergence of the Tea Party, we question bluntly why it hasn’t merited a response from those quarters when it appears to have the hallmarks of a Tea Party cause cèlébre.
Foster Edwards, president and CEO of the Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce, explained best why it’s time to ditch the association and spread the risk statewide. “After all,” he said, “there is not a Texas fire insurance association created because of the horrific losses in Bastrop or a tornado association for the horrible losses in North Texas.”
We wouldn’t say another Celia couldn’t happen this year. We’re saying Celia, like Ike, was what’s known as a 100-year event, for good reason. Yet, 42 years later, we’re still paying for it and the Bastrop fires were last year. We’ve had about enough of finger-wagging from tornado alley lawmakers who say it serves coastal residents right for living near the water. Hinojosa and Hunter aren’t just politicians preening for their constituents. They’re lawyers who know taxation without representation when they see it.
