Leaked report: Roughly half-a-billion in insurance paid
A leak of documents addressed to Premier Dr D Orlando Smith has revealed 36 percent of insurance claims filed after the three catastrophic disasters last year was still not settled at the end of March 2018. Approximately half-a-billion worth of insurance settlements already has been paid territory-wide, the leaked documents said.
The Financial Services Commission (FSC) was identified as the author of the documents, which reported a total 10,870 insurance claims filed in the territory.
Three-hundred-and-fifty-seven of those claims were filed for the August floods, 7,700 were claimed for Hurricane Irma, and another 2,813 were insurance claims made for Hurricane Maria.
According to the FSC document, 164 of the claims made for the August floods were still not settled at the end of March while 1,374 Hurricane Irma claims were still not settled during that same period.
At the end of March, another 416 settlements were remaining for Hurricane Maria insurance claims.
A further breakdown of the claims showed that, as at March 31, some $2.6 million had been paid to persons and organisations who had filed claims for property damage from the August floods.
Insurance settlements for Hurricane Irma at the end of March surpassed a quarter billion dollars. Specifically, that figure was recorded at $391.6 million.
As for Hurricane Maria, the FSC reported $38.3 million worth of paid settlements at the end of March 2018.
The total insurance payouts for all three disasters, so far, was $432.6 million, the document said.
BVIAA yet to receive payout?
Meanwhile, at least one government statutory body had still not received its insurance settlement up to recently.
When representatives from the BVI Airports Authority (BVIAA) appeared before the Standing Finance Committee between March 20 and April 10 this year, the Authority was among local entities that were still awaiting insurance settlements.
At the time, BVIAA Managing Director Denniston Fraser said he hoped his organisation would have received its insurance settlement in two months.
The 2018 Standing Finance report said the BVIAA was awaiting settlement from Caribbean Insurers.
A snippet of the document addressed to Premier Smith on April 27, 2018.
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Heaven help up all
The things that jump out at me from these figures:
– 1,374 of the 7,700 Irma claims have not yet been settled. That means roughly 82% of claims have been settled.
– $391.6 million has been paid out on Irma claims so far. If we assume the last 18% of claims will be settled on a similar basis, that means the total payout for Irma should be around $462 million.
– The original estimate of the costs of Irma were around $3,600 million. So it seems like less than 12% of our total losses will be covered by insurance.
It seems to me that the Insurance Division of the FSC needs to thoroughly investigate why – living in an active hurricane zone – so many people and businesses were either uninsured or underinsured.
We should also extend that to Government. It is a source of amazement to me that our own Government maintains virtually no insurance of publicly held assets and properties.
The FSC doesn’t need to investigate s*&t! People need to take things seriously and get their acts together. When it comes to politics and confusion they know everything but when they refuse to deal with important matters we blame Government.
There is also moral hazard: Government will give you money to rebuild your home, but only if you are uninsured. So of course people will not take out insurance and rely on free Government money. Which in turn makes insurance more expensive for the rest of us.
..and on both sides, provider and client, one to sell a cheaper policy and undercut the competiti9n and 2 to get a cheaper premium. Both sides thought this would never happen and both got caught with pants around their waists.
Dangerous people working in some of these offices.
Call names…
It shows where some employees’ loyalty is and people are talking about victimization. A thorough investigation is needed in the Premier office and that person needs to be fired immediately, if he/she did not have permission to pass on this information to the media.
Those who talk about victimization sometimes are the most qualified.
Post the whole document please.
Are these numbers both property and vehicle or only property? What was the average payout rate by company?
Ok people listen up and listen good. The FSC issues a license to the insurance companies that allow them to do business in the territories. However, there is no governance of the insurance industry and no penalties to the insurance companies when they don’t pay. In other words the insurance company says “take what we offer you or go stick it”. Orlando’s Insurance Tribunal was a farce and did nothing. If you didn’t take the 20% of what you were really owed by the insurance company you were left to fight in Arbitration with them. Spend money to fight while the insurance company drags things out and uses your money to fight. How about revoke the licenses of each company until they finalize all outstanding claims. That’s what an honest government for the people would do!!!