Declarations

Not Wasting Time

“I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it.”

—President Barack Obama, in a Sept. 9 speech before Congress outlining his plan for overhauling the country’s health care system. He called on federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to end their political bickering, and work together and quickly on health care reform.

Higher, Stronger Buildings Needed

“Simply put, the study found that many properties are not built high enough to withstand storm surges, tightly enough to prevent water from causing interior damage or strongly enough to prevent damage when high winds strike.”

—Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)President and CEO Julie Rochman. A recently released IBHS study, HURRICANE IKE: Nature’s Force vs. Structural Strength, shows that significantly more Gulf Coast homes and businesses are imperiled by disastrous flooding from storm surge than previously recognized by property owners or policymakers. The study examined property damage caused by Hurricane Ike, which struck the Bolivar Peninsula near Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 13, 2008, and found that government minimum flood elevation requirements for properties vulnerable to storm surge throughout the Gulf Coast region are woefully inadequate. The IBHS study questions the current basis for elevating properties along the Gulf Coast and urges the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to provide greater incentives for building well above the minimum elevations now in place.

Insurance or Not?

“Insurance manages risks that are unknown, such as a house fire or an automobile accident, by transferring them to an insurance company in exchange for a premium. … The insurer, in turn, manages the risk by pooling together a large number of risks. Health insurance, however, frequently covers things that are known.”

—Ty Leverty, assistant professor of finance in the Tippie College of Business and Tristar risk management fellow at the University of Iowa. Leverty says health insurance differs in many ways from other types of insurance. He says a part of health insurance really is insurance —the part of the policy, for instance, that pays to cover injuries that truly are unforeseen, like covering the cost of stitches after you cut yourself while slicing a bagel or the costs associated with catastrophic illnesses. When health insurers pay for routine expenses like annual check ups, however, the policy is more like a cash-flow management tool, Leverty says.