Insurance Dispute Lawyer Blog

New website features Open Galveston attractions

Published on: May 4, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

Submitted by a reader (and we love our readers!), a new website is available to see just what popular attractions and sites on the island of Galveston are open! Check out Galveston Now Open! to see just what sites you can visit that have recovered from Hurricane Ike.

Much like the determination and rigor that New Orleans demonstrated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the site features the emerging “Now Open” signs across the Texas island and the optimism this demonstrates for the Gulf Coast region.

A snippet from the site describing the rebuilding efforts:

One Month Until Hurricane Season Begins

Published on: May 1, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

While a tropical storm can pop at any point that the water and air temperatures are “right,” June 1st is commonly considered to be the beginning of “Hurricane Season.”

Things to consider now, or at least before June 1st, are your preparedness for a large tropical storm or hurricane, the storage of important documentation relating to insurance and your home and/or property, evacuation plans and various other steps. Feel free to browse our section on storm and hurricane preparedness tips, located here, and make sure you complete your checklist before storm season gets here.

In the event a storm does cause damage to your home and you feel the insurance companies are not giving you the covered financial restitution you feel you deserve, contact a legal professional immediately. The Berniard Law Firm prides itself on taking on insurance companies and defending Gulf Coast residents against bullying or undercutting insurers.

Galveston on the Rebound

Published on: April 30, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

On Sunday, the Nashua Telegraph featured in their Living section a nice write-up about the recovery effort going on for the residents of Galveston. While there is still a lot of work to be done, it appears that the heart and desire is there for locals to completely rebuild the area after the devastation left by Hurricane Ike:

Despite these and a handful of other shuttered buildings, Galveston has reopened for business just in time for the spring tourism season.

The Flagship is one of only four of the island’s 40 hotels that remain closed since the Category 2 storm tore through town.

SE Texas Residents expected to sue soon over Ike delays

Published on: April 29, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

In the wake of insurance companies backing out of agreements intended to help policy holders rebuild their homes and move on with their lives, SE Texas residents are beginning to feel the need to turn to the legal system to receive the money they are owed. KBMT news did a feature on an impending ‘explosion’ of lawsuits after insurance companies like Allstate have gone back on deals that it had made with policy holders.

Kim and Terry Cooper have lived in their Orange County home for 10 years but were dumbfounded when their insurance company walked away from the Cooper’s damage claims.

“They kept putting us off it seemed like Allstate was trying to keep their money as long as they wanted” said Kim Cooper.

Florida Insurance Bill Moving Forward

Published on: April 28, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

In looking to decrease its exposure, the Florida legislature has moved forward on legislation that will raise premiums on owners of state-backed Citizens Property Insurance policies. The Miami Herald reports:

Lawmakers approved the proposal (HB 1495) Thursday that would increase rates on a gradual basis for customers of the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. The policyholders would see premiums increased an average of 10 percent in the next several years to avoid a potential one-time increase of between 40 and 55 percent on Jan. 1.

The House vote could come Friday.

Forensic experts investigate Chinese Drywall

Published on: April 27, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

Placing a scientific and unbiased opinion on the issues relating to drywall imported from China, forensic experts have begun looking into the effects and problems involved with Chinese drywall. Along with the interesting fact that the crisis has already led to people taking advantage of panic (“One company is already cashing in and selling a Chinese drywall inspection kit,” says Derry. “It is made to test water samples for sulfur levels—to determine if water is drinkable. I talked to the manufacturer and he said it would not work on drywall”), details of how and why the drywall got into the country are discussed:

“Regardless of what people say about US building developers and contractors, for the most part they didn’t buy Chinese drywall to save money but ordered it simply for supply and demand,” says Doug Derry, field services manager, CBI Forensics. And there was a lot of demand after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. “Shipping records show that since 2006, 550 million pounds of drywall were imported from China into the US—enough for about 100,000 homes.”

Derry says forensics inspectors started to investigate allegedly toxic drywall in December 2008. Based on what they saw, Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin LTD., which is a subsidiary of German-based Knauf, supplies upwards of 50 countries with drywall and insulation. America ran out of drywall during the building boom, so between 2004 and 2007 Chinese drywall was being used to build American homes. (On March 24, 2009 Florida’s Atttorney General launched a criminal investigation into Knauf and L&W Supply Corp, to investigate whether the companies committed any deceptive sales or marketing practices.)

States Outside of Gulf Coast Eyeing Danger of Hurricanes

Published on: April 24, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

A Maryland based group recently studied the effects of a hurricane hitting the Northeast and found the results would be economically devastating. Using only a category 3 hurricane in their analysis (Gustav and Katrina were both 4’s), the group found that such a storm could cause upwards of $130 billion in insured residential losses.

There’s “definitely the potential for very large events (in the Northeast), but they’re fairly infrequent,” said David Smith, senior vice president of EQECAT, a risk management company in Oakland, Calif.

Some 250 insurance industry professionals, academics and others attended a Willis Research Network summit on Category 3 hurricanes in the Northeast at Princeton University on Thursday. And they heard talks on hurricane and climate science and hurricane, storm surge and flood risks in the Northeast.

China denies responsibility for drywall

Published on: April 23, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

In an interesting little article that may have slipped through the cracks for many, the Wall Street Journal discusses claims by Chinese officials that the drywall issue is, potentially, an American myth of sorts. Xu Luoyi, head of the National Building Materials Industrial Technology Supervisory Research Center, notes that the Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Company provided drywall for a variety of projects across the world and that the only complaints emerging are from the US:

“It’s worth considering why this problem has only emerged in the United States,” said Xu. “The U.S. credit crisis has caused the real estate market to collapse, and as a result domestic drywall manufacturers have seen their sales suffer and their product is relatively expensive compared to the Chinese-made drywall, so we should also consider these issues.”

Take it for what it’s worth but Xu does provide interesting claims, including that Knauf’s drywall was used for a wide assortment of projects. Knauf, per Xu,

Texas Windstorm Insurance facing financial crisis

Published on: April 22, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

Texas’ state-run wind damage insurance program has fallen into financial crisis as a result of settlements and payouts in the face of recent hurricanes. Insurance reform has been pushed to the top of Governor Perry’s priority list in the new legislative session but things are not looking good for the program:

An arduous task is ahead for Texas legislators as they continue to hammer out measures meant to shore up the state’s property insurance market in time for this year’s hurricane season, which begins June 1.

While it continues to pay claims from Hurricane Ike last September, the state-run Texas Windstorm Insurance Association is in a “severe financial crisis,” said Jerry Johns, president of the Southwestern Insurance Information Service and a spokesman for TWIA, which he said has depleted the Catastrophe Reserve Trust Fund. In addition, reinsurance expires May 31, he said.

Florida to begin testing Chinese Drywall homes

Published on: April 21, 2009 | By Berniard Law Firm

As the Chinese Drywall saga continues, Florida has jumped all over the issue and is pushing for investigations while testing homes for dangerous sulfur levels. These actions come after a timeline of incidences, many of which may be read about on this blog’s section on the drywall, and demonstrate a level of seriousness taken by the government to protect citizens:

The Florida Health Department said last week it would start testing air quality in homes built with defective Chinese drywall to determine if sulfur fumes emitted by the material pose any health hazard. Meanwhile, a state senator has asked Florida’s governor to set up a task force to take up the Chinese drywall issue.

Fumes emitted from Chinese drywall produce a “rotten eggs” odor and cause metals, such as air conditioning coils, to corrode. The fumes have also been associated with respiratory and sinus problems in some residents. In some homes, the drywall problems have been so severe that families have had to move, and some builders have begun gutting and replacing drywall in the buildings.