After Disasters, Puerto Ricans Are Left With $1.6 Billion in Unpaid Insurance Claims

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

After Disasters, Puerto Ricans Are Left With $1.6 Billion in Unpaid Insurance Claims

Homeowners and cities say they’re getting pennies on the dollar. Some insurers have gone out of business. Lawsuits and claims of fraud — on both sides — are flying.

By Frances Robles and Patricia Mazzei
Feb. 6, 2020, 6:45 p.m. ET

When the ground shakes in Puerto Rico and it is time to head for higher ground, the people in the northwestern coastal city of Aguadilla find out the old way: the shrill of whistles.

Aguadilla is one of two dozen cities on the island that do not have emergency alert sirens, even as hundreds of earthquakes have rattled Puerto Rico for weeks. The sirens were destroyed during Hurricane Maria in 2017, and insurers still have not paid long-pending claims that would allow the cities to install new warning equipment.

“I’ve seen people in town with a whistle hanging around their necks,” said Carlos Méndez Martínez, who retired as mayor last month after almost 25 years of running the city.

More than two years after Hurricane Maria descended, destroying power poles, public buildings, homes, roads and other infrastructure from one end of the island to the other, an estimated $1.6 billion in insurance claims — particularly high-dollar claims filed by cities and condominium associations — remain unresolved.

Emergency facilities, hospitals, stadiums, basketball courts, convention centers and other government properties around the island are still in shambles, waiting for repair because private insurers have not paid claims.

Hurricane Maria exposed an important deficiency in the process of Puerto Rico’s disaster recovery: underfunded private insurers, who are subject to few regulations.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/us/puerto-rico-insurance-tsunami.html

[58Sunliner]

1. That's effing criminal.