Posted On: February 15, 2007, 7:34 pm CST

Posted By: Bill

Shaun, I'm confused. You say your house was destroyed although the walls and the roof were standing, and Allstate denied you claim 100% even though their engineers stated the winds were over 145 mph.

What exactly did the damage? The wind or, perhpas, storm surge?

They were correct if the damage was clearly from the surge. Did you have flood insurance?

State Farm denied wind damage if there was also flood damage, even if the wind damage occurred first, which is despicable.

The solution? Always buy your flood coverage from your homeowners insurer.

A major problem with the Gulf Coast storms was that the federal definition of flood does not contemplate flood from storm surge. Consequently many people were not in a flood zone according to the federal definition but were seriously exposed to surge.

Some who were right on the beach didn't buy flood because their elevation meant they weren't subject to flood originating from falling water. But who in their right mind would live right on the beach and not buy flood.