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Day 74: Re-Opened Restaurants; Twin Span Update; Insurance Gouging

New Orleans’ Re-Opened Restaurants: The New Orleans Menu Daily presents an exhaustive list of restaurants now open in the New Orleans area. The list isn’t particularly reader-friendly, but is organized by neighborhood starting with the French Quarter, CBD and the Marigny.

Dante’s Kitchen (best restaurant ever), Juan’s Flying Burrito and Singha Thai are open! Mimi’s in the Marigny and Cafe Rani are, sadly, not.

Twin Span Update: (Thanks, Earl!) For those that have not been back, one side of the I-10 twin span is open to Slidell and it sounds like progress is ahead of schedule for the second span.

A FEMA home inspector informed me that travel on the Causeway is also quite good. The only traffic commuters encounter is in their respective towns and neighborhoods.

Insurance Gouging:

in·sur·ance n.
a. The state of being insured.
b. Coverage by a contract binding a party to indemnify another against specified loss in return for premiums paid.
c. The sum or rate for which such a contract insures something.
d. The periodic premium paid for this coverage.

Why are we forced to insure anything and everything we hold dear, and with good money, if the service isn’t ultimately rendered? This post over at By The Bayou has got me worried and infuriated for victims of natural disasters the nation over.

Allstate doesn’t want to pay claims to Rita victims for living expenses after the storm unless their homes were made uninhabitable. Unfortunately, it’s quite possible for someone to have a home that wasn’t damaged by the storm, but had no clean water or electricity and was in the middle of an evacuated area to which they couldn’t return. According to Allstate, that’s habitable … The Texas insurance department took them to court, a judge ordered them to pay, but they got a temporary injunction – so nothing for people struggling to recover from the storm.

This was exactly my living situation in New Orleans until the city reopened. Allstate also happens to be the company that will no longer underwrite property in certain parts of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. Shouldn’t an insurance company be prepared for the worst case scenario and when such a need arises? That is their business and, in my opinion, legally-sanctioned daylight robbery.

1 comment… add one
  • Ashu November 10, 2005, 6:39 PM

    Thanks for reminding me of YET another reason why I switched away from AllState after being a 3-year customer of theirs!

    I can’t see their case or logic holding any water whatsoever (pardon the unfortunate potential pun). Evacuation due to potential for (insured property) damage SHOULD be covered. And if other companies are paying it, they should too. Or vice versa.

    Not offering insurance in an area for or reducing availability of a kind of coverage, on the other hand, is a perfectly understandable business decision – but should not work retroactively to (previous?) customers’ detriment. Ugh!

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