Letter: Hurricane insurance was useless

Like many other homeowners on Hilton Head Island, my home suffered damage during Hurricane Mathew. Without going into the details my eventual bill for repairs was around $10,000. Not that much compared with other residents, but enough to put a dent in the family savings.

I have been paying for home insurance since I moved to my current home nine years ago at the rate of around $3,250 per year. Therefore, I was under the impression that any damage from storms or flooding would be at least semi-covered.

I now find that because the hurricane was given a name, my insurance policy is subject to a discount that is larger than the costs of my repairs.

In short, I would have been better off not carrying insurance, but saving my insurance payments over the past years in a personal bank account for disasters. Obviously, my relationship with my insurance company has now come to an end. My only regret is that I was never made aware of the “name situation” when I purchased my insurance coverage. I guess someone forgot to mentions this amendment to my policy.

This story was originally published December 16, 2016 at 9:50 AM with the headline "Letter: Hurricane insurance was useless."