Residents who live in regions with high climate risk are surprised to find that their insurance policies contain loopholes that leave many customers responsible for the full cost of emergency evacuations.
Brandon Bell / Getty Images fileAs this year’s hurricane season approaches its final month, Djinaba Rickson of Terrytown, Louisiana, is still battling to recover $2,000 — roughly half her savings — in evacuation expenses from her renters' insurance company.
Roszell Gadson, a spokesperson for State Farm, told NBC News that the company “reviews every claim on its own merits in accordance with the insurance policy.” Evacuation expenses as part of a hurricane claim are not new, John Spencer Creevy, an attorney in New Orleans with Herman Herman & Katz, LLC, said in an email. But now the nuance “is whether an insurer should be obligated to cover such expenses when the insured has not been forced from their home due either to an explicit government evacuation order or substantial damage to the home, but as a reasonable precaution for the health and safety of the home’s occupants.
He urged insurance companies to “do the right thing.” People “left their homes because they felt it was: flee or risk death,” he said in a speech. “There’s nothing voluntary about that.” “If we were to retroactively change what we agreed to do for our customers, it could have a negative long-term impact on insurance prices across the country,” she said.“It's not too strong a word to say I was shocked,” he said. “But at all times my responsibility is to protect consumers in this very expensive, very complicated and absolutely essential part of their lives, so that's why I feel so strongly about this issue.
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