After every natural disaster, the first concern should be the people and making they are safe and relatively secure. Then the next task is clean up and then submitting claims to the insurance companies.

If you live by a creek or river, you are aware that there are high and low points for the water on a normal basis. You are reasonably aware of the worst case in recent years, then there are the 1,000-year possibilities. If you live by a creek, you are not expecting the 1,000-year possibility and likely will not have flood insurance. You will likely have the regular non flood insurance. What happens if you live by a creek, water levels rise, trees and debris block a bridge or dam and the water detours onto your property and you have water damage? What happens if you live in an area that has seen many floods due to hurricanes?

In an article by Sally Ho of the Associated Press, likely tree and roof damage are normally covered. The big issue is water damage. Water damage is typically not covered by home insurance and many insurance do not carry flood insurance. At the moment, the primary company is the government through the National Flood Insurance Program run by the Federal Emergency Managment Agency or FEMA. Congress created the program 50 years ago when private insurance companies stopped covering flood damage.

North Carolina has 129,933 policies in place, but likely that is on the coast and in Florida, there are 1.7 million flood policies.

Charlotte Hicks, a flood-insurance expert in North Carolina who has led flood risk training and educational outreach for the state’s Department of Insurance said the reality is that many Helene survivors will never be made whole. Most people will be left to fend for themselves or starting over. Some will go into foreclosure or bankruptcies. Entire neighborhoods will not be rebuilt.

For private insurance companies, although the numbers are large, they are manageable, according to Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group. The losses are expected to be in the $5 to $8 billion range. (Hurricane Ian, a category 4 hurricane caused about $50 billion in damages).

Only 6% of homeowners carry flood insurance and most live on the coast.

Even if a homeowner does have flood insurance, the maximum FEMA pays out is $250,000 per house and $100,000 for contents.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, every industry has manageable costs, those which are high but not too high to keep the company selling products and services to make a profit to pay dividends. In the private sector, it is good business not to do something or cut unprofitable areas of customers. The insurance companies do this very well to keep their investors holding their stock and bonds. While often we think insurance companies are here for you, there are many exceptions, and the less you need them, the better they like it. For your investments, what is a manageable costs and what is the risks it will go over that number?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.