Category: Billion Dollar Coa$tline

CULTURE | Billion Dollar Coa$tline

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The Billion Dollar Coastline – Our Readers Respond

OUR READERS RESPOND For the past four months, Lowcountry Weekly has been running a series of articles by Daryl Ferguson about the SC Homeowners Insurance crisis. The series isn’t over yet – unfortunately, neither is the crisis – but in this issue, we’re taking a break to publish some of your feedback. The response to the series has been overwhelming, and we regret that we don’t have room to post every letter we’ve received. We’ve attempted to gather a broad cross-section of opinion here, and have only published those letters that included the writer’s full name. We are thrilled with the great response to this series and look forward to bringing you the rest of it in upcoming issues. As always, thanks for reading Lowcountry Weekly!

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The Billion Dollar Coastline – Part 7

Part 7: What Will It Take? The Post and Courier’s headline banner for their Easter Sunday newspaper did not focus on Easter eggs, national news, or a train wreck. The Sunday headline banner read, “OUTRAGE OVER HOME INSURANCE.” The Gazette/Packet reprinted the article the following Tuesday. In that article Tony Bartelme, the Post and Courier’s Pulitzer Prize finalist, summarized the fact that coastal homeowners are literally going viral on their escalating homeowners insurance premiums.

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The Billion Dollar Coastline – Part 6

Part Six: Disappointment and Exhilaration There is no more painful task than to make the case that someone is not qualified for a job . . . especially when the applicant, or nominee, wants the job. Ray Farmer wanted the job. He wanted to be the next Commissioner of Insurance for South Carolina. But by any objective test, he was not qualified.

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The Billion Dollar Coastline – Part 5

Part Five: Governor Haley, Missing in Action   By April of last year I knew we had a sizeable homeowners insurance problem. Our premiums were among the highest in the nation. An insurance industry insider had secretly given us the numbers that showed that our risks were “relatively low.” By that time we believed that we had identified most of the problems.

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The Billion Dollar Coastline – Part 2

Part Two: Enter a “Deep Throat” Read Part One: The Discovery   It took three years of digging. I had solved the dinner party question. Hurricanes usually turn away from our coast during the fall season. And now I know why. Yes, it is possible for them to break through; but it is rare. What lay ahead of me was nothing short of a Sherlock Holmes story. But in this case, it was a true story… one that I will never forget. And this story involved a “Deep Throat.”

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The Billion Dollar Coastline – Part 1

Part One: The Discovery   The map you see here identifies a one billion dollar opportunity. It was published by the National Hurricane Center in 2010 to illustrate the projected frequency of hurricanes. But it shows much more than that. Notice where the coastline is edged in deep blue. That color band literally identifies the best fall weather in the South.

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