TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Airport Rebuilding Stalled Due to Insurance

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Not good!

Makes you wonder why NAGICO is stalling. There sure doesn't seem to be an issue of damage.

Perhaps some of it is this business about not taking measures to protect the structure after the hurricane? Regardless, very bad for the island. PJIA needs to be operational at a much better pace than now.

Don't think that there was much more PJIA could have done to protect the building any further considering the magnitude of the storm and it's aftermath.

To me its not really that surprising. So much damage on the Island and I think NAGICO had most of the business and from what I have heard, like everyone else the claims are very high and some are very over stated amounts people are claiming and they are paying out hundred of Millions. Of course they will not pay what they want, something has to be left in the pot for all the other claims. Something like this could cause a insurance company to go bankrupt. Then what?

Allegedly, Nagico is fully solvent enough to pay all claims, as they have some partners that are re-insuring them.

I think you're right. Seems likely since, in the article, the airport goes to the trouble of denying the anonymous allegations in the New Yorker.

Absolute guess but wondering if part of the problem is the determination of was this claim one incident or two....hence that would vary the limits, the deductible etc. Trying to determine what was damaged by each incident....not sure that it matters in the long run.....just thinking out loud.

That would take one humongous tarp to cover the roof!

One would assume Nagico is just positioning themselves for minimizing their payout, but who can expect anything different? The issue here is the total ineptness of the government - no common sense, no advance contingency planning (gee, what might we do if a hurricane comes???) We all remember that the government was totally absent before, during, and after Irma and Maria - from closing the shelters BEFORE Irma hit to weeks later when Marlin started to be visible again??

I could only think after Irma about the lack of vision, lack of organized recovery efforts, lack of strategic and contingency planning for infrastructure, schools, food, etc, etc. Some of us from the corporate world all remember spending endless time in meetings discussing long term planning, contingency planning, etc, and we all looked at total dismay that there are no skills like this on the island. I got so tired of those meetings with topics like "What happens to us if swine flu breaks out and what do we have in place to deal with it?" "Loss of internet?" "Natural disasters affecting a corporate facility or employees".........but those meetings were all appropriate and necessary. When one of our facilities lost electricity for an extended period due to a flood, we had moving vans in place that night to move equipment from that operation to three other operations and never lost a beat. Why? Because it had all been foreseen and planned for and someone just called up that file and started to lead according to "the plan". Surely there needs to be SOME planning for hurricanes in the islands. Will there be? We all know the answer is no.

Common sense is to get the insurers onsite immediately after an event and work together with them to develop a recovery plan immediately, and to hold each others feet to the fire to ensure everyone does what they were supposed to in a timely manner - though obviously that plan framework should have been in place long before it was necessary. Many of us remember all the posts here and other sites about how nothing was being done at the airport for weeks after Irma to mitigate the damages. Many of us remember the posts about the government officials being all "shock and awe" when they took a tour of the airport building weeks after. With that background in mind, is any of this a surprise?

All of this is just one more example in the long, long list of government failures on the island. How many of us remember the recent posts about the last Dutch-side election results and see how hopeless the situation is for the island going forward. Almost no one votes? They voted Marlin back as a PM? Tiny "radical" and splinter parties with less than 1000 votes dominate the government?

I know I'm being harsh and will feel the backlash, but really, how does one feel sorry about the atrocities experienced by and perped on these people by the government when no one there gets involved, no one believes the government is anything but corruption, etc. They believe that government is hopeless and controlled by the "big-wigs", and so it is. Beliefs like these are self-fulfilling prophesies.

I just wish it were easier to see progress on the island continuing from what it was previously to what it could be, instead of the decline we've experienced "post - independence".

I guess it would be too easy to draw certain parallels to the U.S, but then things would really get crazy here. LOL!

Well Dand, you are absolutely correct....truth hurts sometimes.

Your post may well be correct, except with regard to the most recent election. Unless you know something I don't, Marlin has NOT been voted back in as PM.. He got the least votes of anyone in his party, I believe, and his party is definitely in the minority. The current, interim PM, is a lady, who MAY be related to William Marlin, I don't know.

Nagico responds link

I'm kind of stupid, I guess, because I don't understand what they are saying..

Our provisional Prime Minister is Leona Romeo-Marlin. The new members of government and their roles following the election have not been decided yet.

If you want to read the full rebuttal from Nagico on FB, go here:

https://www.facebook.com/NagicoInsu...1258/893726537453551/?type=3&theater

It might make more sense than the snippet above.

Appears pretty straightforward, the insurer is advising that the claim has not been presented in full detail.......they have advanced funds to get the airport operational again, they have advanced funds to order equipment/parts that have a long leed time......but to think they are going to simply write out a cheque for $100 million dollars or so without having all details and replacement values and time frames for things to be done is laughable. Both sides are attempting to work together using experts in this area. What appears to be lacking possibly is one person leading the entire operation.

Elaine--Is the current PM related to William Marlin?

I'm sorry, I knew it wasn't PM, I should have written MP in my post above about St Maarten's government ineptness and failings. My error. I based my comment on reading elsewhere after the 2/26/18 election that he was re-elected as an Member of Parliament. There really hasn't been much written about the election results, but here's what I see in an attempt to confirm:

The National Alliance party won about 30% of the vote, giving them 5 MP positions:

http://beta.sxmelections.com/

William Marlin was third in his parties votes at 11%:

http://www.sintmaartengov.org/speci...18/Pages/The-National-Alliance---NA.aspx

As I understand, the National Alliance Party won 5 positions on the parliament in this election, and Marlin was third in the National Alliance voting results, so I'm thinking he's one of the 15 MP's. At least he thinks he is:

http://smn-news.com/st-maarten-st-m...dges-to-protect-uphold-constitution.html

As a side note, regarding general voting apathy in elections there and looking at these actual results - voter participation in February wasn't as bad as I'd thought. The population of St Maarten is just over 40,000, and according to the published results above, there were about 22,500 eligible voters in Feb. Almost 15,000 actually voted, or roughly 62%, far higher participation than I had thought. In perspective, that compares to 55% in 2016's apathetic U.S. election but more in line with 64% in 2008's.