How are things going in New Orleans? Not so good.
Citing the status of the rebuilding of the levee system, the largest commercial insurer in Louisiana, St. Paul Travelers, has announced it will cancel all commercial property insurance policies it has underwritten in the New Orleans area next year as existing policies come up for renewal.
What does this mean? For a region struggling to resurrect its economic base, it’s a huge impediment to commerce.
“This is sending a shock wave through the business community,” said Mark Drennen, president and chief executive officer of Greater New Orleans Inc., a public-private partnership that seeks to promote economic development in the area. “If one company has come to that conclusion, you would anticipate that others would come to that conclusion. Without insurance, we have a calamity. We cannot exist as a business community without insurance.”
It’d be nice to hear the White House press corps asking how the Bush Administration’s much touted rebuilding effort in New Orleans is going if the insurance companies don’t trust the Army Corps’ newly reconstructed levees, the centerpiece of the President’s plan to help New Orleans recover.
