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Term Life Insurance Policy As a coastal getaway, Cape San Blas would seem to have everything going for it - balmy weather, the teal-green Gulf of Mexico and talcum-smooth sands on a stretch of beach often cited as one of the nation's best.

term care insurance policies are guaranteed renewable. That is, the policy cannot be cancelled by the insurance company unless (1) you committed fraud in your application for the policy, (2) you have not paid the required premium and the policy has lapsed, or (3) benefits have been exhausted. A guaranteed renewable policy cannot be cancelled because of a change in your health condition, or your marital or employment status. However, the insurance company may increase premiums, but only on an entire class of policies, not just on your policy, and never because of any claims paid to you.

Life Insurance But it has a serious problem. Under the provisions of a little-known coastal preservation program, it is ineligible for federal flood insurance.

Insurance Life Premium Until now, property owners could buy insurance privately, but in the wake of this year's hurricanes private insurers have largely pulled out of the Florida market. Once their policies expire, property owners will be on their own if storms flood their homes. And they cannot sell them because without flood insurance, would-be buyers cannot get mortgages. "Multimillions in closings cannot close today," said Greg Johnson, president of Bayside Savings Bank here.

A type of savings or investment account which is exempt from income and capital gains tax. You can use it to save cash or to invest in stocks and shares. Insurance Premium Tax Tax imposed on most insurance policy premiums (it does not apply to life insurance policies). Intermediary A person or organisation that offers advice and arranges policies for clients.

Health Insurance Policy So people in Gulf County, which includes Cape San Blas, have asked their congressman to exempt their area from the provisions of the program, established under the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982.

You may cancel this insurance within 45 days of the start of the period of cover and provided you have not made a claim, we will give you a full refund of any premium you have paid. Allianz Schemes, 6 Vale Avenue, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 1EH quoting your policy number. You must also return your certificate of insurance for cancellation. If you do not cancel within this period the premium becomes due, and the policy may run for its full term.

Health Insurance They are hardly alone. While there are no statistics on how much land has been removed from the law's protections, dozens of exemption bills have been passed by Congress.

After the initial period of guaranteed premiums, what will my term life insurance cost Each term life insurance policy, if renewable, has a contractually guaranteed maximum life insurance renewal premium that can be illustrated, and which is shown in your policy. This amount is the most you'll have to pay to renew the term life insurance policy.

Insurance Life Premium Return "It's almost as if Congress is in charge of drawing the maps," said Jeff Fleming, chief of public affairs at the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the law.

Whole Life Insurance Policy For property owners here, the proposed exemption is a matter of simple fairness: they cannot see why they should be denied benefits that people in neighboring areas enjoy as a matter of course.

Auto Cheap Insurance "You start all the way over in Gulf Shores, Ala.," Mr. Johnson said. "Every one of those areas has flood insurance. Cape San Blas does not. You tell me that's fair."

Insurance Life Premium Whole But advocates of the coastal barrier law (abbreviated C.B.R.A. but pronounced Cobra) say that denying benefits to places like Cape San Blas is exactly what the act was meant to do.

Cheap Home Insurance Policy These advocates say government flood insurance and other such benefits only encourage development in hazardous areas, at a potentially huge cost in insurance payouts and disaster relief - so far, the Bush administration is seeking more than $12 billion for this year's storms. They call the federal assistance socialism for wealthy people - people who can afford first or second homes on the beach - who have deliberately put themselves in harm's way.

Home Insurance The dispute demonstrates how federal efforts to protect the fragile barrier islands that line the coasts have run up against the imperatives of politics and money.

Care Insurance Long Premium When Congress passed the Cobra law in the early years of the Reagan administration, it was praised as a new model for "free-market natural resource conservation," legislation that would "minimize the loss of human life, wasteful expenditure of federal revenues, and the damage to fish, wildlife and other natural resources" - not through complicated land use regulations but by simply denying federal support for everything from sewer construction to flood insurance.

Home Owner Insurance Policy In adopting the legislation, Congress noted that coastal barriers are inherently unstable landforms, "generally unsuitable for development because they are vulnerable to hurricane and other storm damage."

Auto Insurance Company "It just didn't seem to make sense for the federal taxpayers to continually have to ante up if you build in a dangerous area," said Senator Lincoln Chafee, the Rhode Island Republican whose father, Senator John H. Chafee, initiated the legislation. As the Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the act, said in a 2002 report, "people can develop, but taxpayers won't pay."

Travel Insurance Policy Even when it was passed, the law covered only a small fraction of the coasts. Much of the land had already been developed, and property owners were already enjoying the benefits of the flood insurance program and other federal largess. Under the act, the Fish and Wildlife Service was to identify stretches of coast - eventually more than 1.3 million acres - that were not yet developed. The law generally prohibited spending federal money there.

Insurance Quote In its 2002 report, the agency calculated that the law had saved taxpayers $1.3 billion, money the federal government would otherwise have spent on roads, sewers and other infrastructure and to cover insurance payments, disaster relief and other expenses after coastal storms.

Financing Insurance Life "Absent the framework of the coastal barriers protection, we would have seen more development," said Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who led a successful effort this summer to restrict flood insurance payments to people - on the coast and along rivers - whose properties are repeatedly flooded.

Geico Auto Insurance Policy Other experts say it is hard to tell how much the law saved the taxpayers. Yes, they say, there is less development on the protected land, but much of it would never have been developed because it was already in parks or other conservation areas. Or it was low-lying, muddy, hard to reach or otherwise unattractive to developers.

International Travel Health Even in areas covered by the law, Mr. Blumenauer said, developers and property owners build anyway, and then try "to get around the act, or get defined out of it."

Auto Insurance Premium That is what happened on North Captiva Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida, an island that was created when a hurricane tore across Captiva Island in the 1920's and then severed again when Hurricane Charley made landfall there in August.

Home Insurance Policy In 2000, Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida, now President Bush's director of central intelligence, persuaded fellow members of Congress to pass a bill redrawing the Cobra map of the area, removing 14 acres of privately held land from the system. (Staff members in his Congressional office referred inquiries to the C.I.A., where a spokesman said Mr. Goss would have no comment.)

Travel Health Insurance Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat, is helping his Cape San Blas constituents with legislation that would make the area eligible for flood insurance. The bill is pending.

Insurance Life Premium Term Mr. Boyd acknowledged that there were "problems of excess development on barrier islands" and that coastal hazards raised "questions individuals have to answer for themselves." But he too views flood insurance for Cape San Blas as a fairness issue.

Auto Insurance Policy "Just like we have other catastrophic programs in this country and we provide federal tax money for lots of different programs, the federal flood insurance program is a good program too," he said.

International Travel Medical Elsewhere, loopholes in the coastal law and what some experts describe as loose application of its provisions have meant that property owners who might have been barred from benefits have received them. For instance, after a series of hurricanes struck the Outer Banks of North Carolina a few years ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency "interpreted Cobra provisions rather liberally," said Dr. David Salvesen of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina, who has studied the issue.

Insurance Life Premium Quote He said the federal government provided up to $6 million in disaster relief to the Cobra areas in the town of North Topsail Island. "The federal government came in and fixed the roads, hauled off debris, fixed the bridge," he said.

Umbrella Insurance Policy Sometimes, state or local governments may ante up money for roads, bridges or other projects the federal government was barred from financing. Sometimes developers build roads and then dedicate them to public use, making them eligible for federal repair funds when they are washed out in a storm, Dr. Salvesen said.

Travel Medical Insurance Cape San Blas, a narrow strip of sand that extends into the Gulf of Mexico, is largely open space. St. Joseph Peninsula State Park occupies its far end, and part of the middle of it belongs to Eglin Air Force Base, on the mainland nearby. These stretches are undeveloped. But much of the rest of it is covered with single-family houses, almost all of them built since the coastal law was enacted.

Hazard Insurance Premium For much of this time, the lack of federal flood insurance was not a major issue. Much of the cape is high enough that mortgage applicants were not required to have flood insurance. But then the federal government redrew its flood maps. Suddenly many property owners found themselves in hazard areas, with insurance requirements.

Sell Life Insurance Policy For a time owners could get policies from private carriers, and most of them could recoup the cost through rental fees. But since this year's hurricanes, would-be buyers are hard pressed to find any kind of flood insurance. People who bought building lots cannot obtain the mortgages they need to build.

Car Insurance Rate "It's created a situation where it's an area now for the well-to-do," said Ron Morrow, who heads the Gulf County Coastal Development Association, a group formed to address the area's Cobra problems.

Financing Insurance Premium When the government began issuing flood insurance, under a program established in 1968, the aim was not to encourage development but to hold down disaster spending. The idea was, first, that construction standards set by the program would mean that buildings would be less vulnerable to damage in storms and, second, that the program would finance its payouts with the premiums paid into it.

Cheap Life Insurance Policy The first premise held up. There is wide agreement that structures built to the new standards do much better in storms. On the nearby Alabama coast, where Hurricane Ivan came ashore last month and where workers are still removing giant piles of sand and debris from streets and driveways, a vast majority of condominium towers are still standing.

Term Life Insurance "The well-built structures are tolerating these storms quite nicely," said Spencer Rogers of the North Carolina Sea Grant program, who has spent weeks on the Alabama coast studying characteristics of buildings that survived the storm or succumbed to it. From that perspective, he said, the Cobra program is "highly flawed" in that it does not stop development but does nothing to encourage people to build sturdier structures. "You've got all the problems and none of the incentives to do better," he said.

Deductible Health Insurance But there is also wide agreement that the program's premiums cover its costs only in periods of calm weather. After big storms, it incurs huge deficits, which must be made up by the federal treasury. And the insurance program has hardly relieved the federal government of the need to provide disaster assistance.

Individual Health Insurance "I shudder to think what's going to happen when all the damage is calculated" from this year's hurricanes, Mr. Blumenauer said. "Big dollars will be involved, clearly."

Dental Insurance For him and for others, that is all the more reason for keeping property under the protection of the coastal law. "What's the justification for getting Cape San Blas out of the Cobra area?" asked Stephen P. Leatherman, director of the International Hurricane Research Center in Miami, who as a young geologist was a technical adviser when the law was drawn up.

Auditor Insurance Premium As his alter ego "Dr. Beach," Dr. Leatherman publishes yearly ratings of the nation's best beaches, and those at Cape San Blas routinely turn up in his Top 10.

Selling Life Insurance Policy He said this year's storms would provide a good opportunity for people to step back and reconsider how they want the coast to develop. He understands the desire to help people rebuild after storms, he said, "to raise the American flag and pitch in and put it all back together again like it never happened."

Low Cost Health Insurance But that, he said, is "a misplaced sentiment."

Insurance Life Premium Single By Cornelia Dean
New York Times - 10/26/2004

Topic: Flood Control

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