Watching the Weather Channel calling for a Panic

The left coast and the Northeast corridor keep getting hit by storms that are wrecking budgets. More concerning are the non-taxable insurance settlements that are financing tax flight. It looks like this is getting real messy, real quick. Criminal investigations of corruption is the next logical step and that will lead to reform. But the process will be really messy

 

And the panic is?

 

Agreed. The WC is fun to watch, but then I am enjoying perfect weather in southern AZ.

What do you mean by non taxable insurance settlements that are financing tax flight?

 

If you choose not to rebuild you can keep the insurance money and the mortgage holder owns the wrecked home. With CA prices You can buy a comparable house without a mortgage in most other states from insurance money in case of flood or fire. As a damage settlement that money is not income.

 

That’s a great! Love it.

 

On a related issue, one of the most under-reported scandals - welfare for the Rich, if you please - is federal flood insurance. This HIGHLY SUBSIDIZED program makes it possible for mainly-Rich people to build homes in coastal and flood-prone areas where no sane person would ever build, and no for-profit insurance company would ever insure. So the taxpayers backstop the insurers with billions and billions of dollars every year to benefit mainly-Rich property owners when they do something stupid (build in a flood plane or a dangerous coastal area).

Then, when these hurricanes (etc) cause more and more billions in damage as time goes by, we are still stuck paying those losses.

End the subsidies. People will stop building there.

 

Amen. I live 12 blocks from the Ocean no flooding than since my house was built in the 1950s. Three blocks from the ocean every 50 years or so surfing third st. is a shortlived sport. 2nd street surfing about once every 10-20 years, first street let's just say it's a future dune system.

 

Yes. This scam has been known since the 1980's, yet it still goes on. No pol is going to piss off rich people by cutting off their subsidies.

 

60 Minutes aired this stuff decades ago; Ralph Nader and others did so even earlier. Nothing is going to be done about it, pols in neither Party will do anything about it. You'll be off on another 'Big Issue of the Day' by morning and it will all be gone, until the next annual expose after a big storm comes along.

 

Wouldn't the mortgage holder have a claim on the insurance money? I think the insurance company would have to pay off the lien first and the owner would get the remainder. Unless the owner just skips town and leaves the mortgage holder holding the bag.