Gordon Barlow

The Atlantic hurricane season is upon us, so it's as good a time as any to call to mind memorable storms of the past and how we coped with them. Most of us have at least one or two such memories - sweeping rains, sea surges, river floodings, even tornadoes... My wife and I survived a Cat-5 hurricane in Cayman in 2004; we spent a few weeks without power or tap-water. (Shortly afterwards, a tsunami in south-east Asia killed 200,000 people, which made our discomfort seem trivial.)

uk_grenada

Really? I thought the hurricane season was August onwards?

In theory here at 12 degrees we are out of the belt [which for marine insurance we are] but errm it doesnt work out always...

There are lots of boatyards where richer folks summer their yachts.

uk_grenada

This water spout is off the east of the island [grenville] last summer.

uk_grenada

I was flying heathrow to austin just after the tsunami, before takeoff the bbc said there had been a few deaths somewhere. On arrival in texas, nothing for 2 days then some vague reporting, the americans really dont do proper news if it happens beyond their borders...

Gordon Barlow

Well, we count ours from 1st June - from an excess of caution, perhaps! Nothing much happens in the Western Caribbean so early, but you never know...

uk_grenada

Indeed, i keep hearing that the impact of global warming is to move the belt north [good for us] but one day ones goung to arrive at new york...

I also heard that this year it will be quiet as its a strong el nino year, but famous last words...

Gordon Barlow

Yeh, who knows? We dropped our hurricane insurance eight or nine years ago. All the annual "catastrophe" premiums plus the deductible will/would be about equal to the damage from a Cat-5, judging from last time. Hurricane Ivan was the first really heavy storm to hit Cayman since 1932, so we reckoned the next one wasn't due for another 72 years! What are the odds, eh? We've kept up our fire cover, so if a hurricane heads our way we'll just have to pray for a lightning strike.

uk_grenada

Here enhaced insurance for a house is about 1000 pounds a year, 500-750 for a new car, but that covers volcano, hurricane, tsunami, earthquake etc. deductables 3%

Gordon Barlow

Well, it's a lot more expensive here. Catastrophe cover is about 2% of the replacement cost of the house, as per valuation. And the replacement cost of houses here is pretty high. We live in a 30-year old Canadian-cedar kit-house valued at over $300,000. (One of our dollars is worth one pound these days, more or less.) It's worth less than that, because we've let it run down more than we should have done; but replacement cost for insurance purposes doesn't take account of the actual condition of a building. So forgoing the extra cover saves us $6000 a year, and our deductible would be 3% of $300K, = $9000. Our calculation is that in eight years we have put aside $48K + $9K = $57K, and $57K is very close to what our claim was for hurricane damage last time, after the deductible.

Of course we would have been screwed if a hurricane had hit the very next year after we dropped the cover! But it's a practical calculation for an island that hurricanes usually miss. For someone over east, it wouldn't make the same financial sense.