TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Airport and insurance going to court

Just seems like business as usual with insurance companies. They try to pay as little as possible and just expect the insured to accept whatever the insurance company is willing to pay. The insurance company has nothing to lose by fighting this because if they win, they save millions and if they lose then the'll have to pay what they previously agreed to, provided they don't file bankruptcy beforehand.

It seems from looking at their corporate numbers, NAGICO will have a difficult time covering airport damage claims of this magnitude. NAGICO is a small Caribbean insurance company with Equity of $100 million and Assets of $300 million (https://www.nagico.com/about-nagico/). The airport claims may make NAGICO insolvent.

For their next insurer, the airport might want to choose a large, out of the Caribbean insurer (note: Their new insurer is Guardian Group, also small and a Caribbean insurance company). Just sayin'

We have owned a home in pelican keys for years. we never had insurance. We put money aside for emergency. In the end. we have gone through luis, and now irma. we had the funds to pay for repairs. Better to put money aside than depend on isurance that could not pay out, go bankrupt or what else???? The way we see it!!!! put money aside for emergency. that goes for all resorts, resturants, and businesses on Island. why would anyone count on insurance??? have they not learned from luis??? Save money and put aside for hurricanes... Much cheaper and more able to fix without waiting for faulty insurance co.

No you are totally incorrect. 50 % of Nagico was sold to a large Chinese Company plus Nagico has branches all over the Carribbean. It's a Billionaire Company.

While my personal situation has nothing to do with the Caribbean, we had the unfortunate opportunity to use our auto and homeowners insurance two times last year. One situation was hail damage to our house/roof and the other a rental car problem with a road hazard. I was very pleasantly surprised at the ease of doing business and how both claims were resolved with my smaller independent insurance company.

People often shop for the "cheapest" and when insurance is actually needed, it ends up costing a lot when you go with the "cheapest".

I will disagree with your blanket statement about insurance companies and hopefully what Lesley stated is correct.

Self-insure is a risk but I am waiting to see what the new rates are with not only Nagico but all Insurance Companies on Island.

Nagico did right by us. We sent in a notification of damage to our condo in Oyster Pond. We visited Nagico when we arrived on the island in February. They sent out an adjuster a month later, Got his report a month after that and Nagico wire-transfered the settlement into our French bank account on the island.

Great service.

That is good to hear.

I actually work for a property & casualty insurance company in the states, and I can't agree with the above advice of going insurance free. I don't want to bore you with the typical 'insurance pitch', but without it many of the places struck by hurricanes last year wouldn't be re-opening. Now, with that said there are good insurance companies and bad ones. I'm not sure what insurance company options exist in the West Indies, but there must be other options other than Nagico. In addition, many places are either over-insured or carry deductibles that are far too low. Sasasal's advice above does have some merit. Carry the correct amount of insurance, select a high deductible that will protect your interests when total, catastrophic damage occurs, but save money in a 'slush fund' from these higher deductibles to cover lesser damage when it occurs. This will help keeps your rates under control by reducing the number of claims you submit.

We did get our good settlement with Nagico , however all rates went up by 25%.

For the record, some (not all by any means) businesses and home owners who had no insurance were the first to start GoFundMe accounts or complain about the damage, the cost of repair and rely on others to help them out.

Not particularly relevant to the Caribbean, our experience with insurance here in Florida from Irma was not great. Huge deductible, based on a totally unrealistic cost to rebuild..

Thank you Kenny for that information.

So digging deeper into NAGICO, it seems that the company sold 50% of their shares to Peak Re in 2017 (with assets over $1 Billion). Peak Re is owned by Fosun Group (with over $12 Billion in assets). https://www.nagico.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/NAGICO-Insurances-Annual-Report-2016.pdf

Those two companies probably don’t want to lose their significant stake in Nagico’s future.

It also seems that William Marlin is Nagico’s main beneficiary (the former Prime Minister until the hurricanes hit in 2017). http://sxmheadlinenews.com/nagico-insurance-change-owners/

Fun and games in the insurance business Hopefully the “new” Nagico will pay their insured people and businesses!

We don't have Nagico, but we were very happy with our insurance. $0,75 to the dollar was quite fair. Most friends felt the same.

If Nagico was smart, they laid off part of their insurance portfolio to reinsurance firms.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinsurance

I meant insurance on Island. We have home insurance here in Pa, but the rates are at least doable. When we were quoted in sxm years ago, we made the decision to save money for hurricanes. That decision was made after luis, as we remember the many companys running for the hills, and hearing about people getting much less than they needed for damage. But that was our decision, and our home suffered damage with Irma, but we managed to repair. In the long run, I think over the years we saved alot. If we are wrong??? Hurricane ins. is very expensive... Not popular, but we have spoken to some people that we know on Island, and they agreed give the cost and the risks with a major hurricane. Not for everyone for sure...

Yes, your situation was much different than I experienced and was shocking to me.

William Marlin has nothing to do with Nagico.

of course that is assuming that the hurricane or any other event does not happen the day after you started saving, or the year after you started saving or the 5 years after you started saving.

Stand to reason.A Gentleman bought Ocean Club last year July and the place was totaled by Hurricane Irma. Wish him real luck if he had insurance..

Well this is a second home for us!!! And we built in 1986. When quoted the price to insure the house, we realized it was way out of budget. But the real decision was after cat 4 hurrican. When people got little to nothing having ins. and had to wait and wait and wait. We have nagico for our car insurance on Island, but decided to put money away for such emergencys, and thanks to renting two apts. on property we did just that.... Of cource if the house totaled it would be a total loss, but we got lucky and sustained damage we could repair... Insurance companys for the most part are into making money not giving it without alot of aggravation, and than, hope that you get the moneys to repair. Everyone has a different issue. For now it worked for us... At this stage of our lives, we should not have this house in the target for hurricanes anyway...lol

Don't mean to get into an insurance battle but I find generally people never look at the reputation of the claims paying ability of an insurer....generally people pick the lowest cost/premium. They rarely look at the coverage and the contract.....simply put cheapest is not always best.

Well that does not always work... Not in an international place... The best is not always the best... and low cost can be a real problem... this is not the U.S.A. and not having alot of knowledge is and can be very costly . If of course we had a business or owned the airport perhaps we would consider ins. this was our choice and for what its worth, when it does not work so be it.