Go Fund Me Campaigns and Insurance

This topic came up in the Potter’s thread and I wanted to make a new note here, to emphasize that I’m not speaking about Potter’s in particular and certainly nothing against Walker. This is an issue on all of the islands that have seen devastated by Irma, etc., as well as here in the US. I have several concerns about this whole thing.

1) The latest rage seems to be Go Fund Me campaigns for everything, including baby showers and sending people on their honeymoon. I personally do not agree with the general concept of people in effect begging for money, which is my perception of these things, if posted by the person wanting the money. I know that many or most of them are posted by OTHER people on behalf of someone else, but one ‘assumes’ that the person for whom the money is being raised has at least consented to the campaign. So I don’t know that I agree with the whole concept. If you really know someone, you know whether they are in need, and you don't have to have them ASK for it.

2) In the context of raising money for a BUSINESS, as compared to for, say the EMPLOYEES of that same business, as a business owner myself, the concept of personal responsibility and carrying insurance on your business resonates with me. Some people choose to self-insure and that’s fine, but that to me is a business decision. And I realize that many people can't afford insurance, but again, to me, it's a cost of doing business. If someone falls at a business and is injured, is that a good reason why the business shouldn't be responsible, that they can't 'afford' insurance?

3) Please understand that Go Fund Me is a business itself. They get 7.8% of all contributions, plus .30 per donation. I’m not saying that they don’t provide a service, but Go Fund Me is a business.

4) Go Fund Me does NOT investigate any of the campaigns and makes no guarantees that the campaigns are not just scams. There have been several scams uncovered in Go Fund Me campaigns in St. Maarten, where there are literally HUNDREDS of such campaigns. Taken from the Go Fund Me website “With hundreds of thousands of campaigns, it's not feasible for GoFundMe to investigate the claims stated by each Campaign Organizer. Rather, we provide visitors with the tools to make an informed decision as to who they choose to support. While GoFundMe and its payment partners do provide a number of safeguards to deter fraud, we must insist that visitors follow the advice stated on each and every campaign. "Only donate to people you personally know & trust."

5) Even if the campaigns itself is not an outright scam, all money donated to Go Fund Me campaigns go to the campaign organizer outright. If you donate money to them, you have only your trust in the good of mankind or the integrity of the particular person that you are donating it to, that the money will actually GET where you think it will go. AND as to what that particular person thinks is a proper use of those funds. Is it a proper use of those funds for the campaign organizer to go the islands with a plane ticket purchased with those funds? What about paying for a hotel room or a rental car while they are there? I don't know what the right answer to that is, but understand that, even if the campaign literature says otherwise, that money goes to the campaign organizer and what they do with it is up to them. Issues...

As I said, in ST. Maarten/ST. Martin, there are LITERALLY hundreds of these campaigns going, including one by a business owner in Simpson Bay who is living in the states, wanting funds to rebuild his business. In the meantime, he seems to be in no hurry to go down to the islands to see for himself what the damage is to his business and what he personally can do to rebuild.

Because of the problems with so MANY of these things, it seems literally for EVERY business on SXM, we don’t even allow them to be posted on the SXM board. We haven’t taken that route here on the BVI board, but a word of caution is in order here. Donate to particular established organizations that you know. If you don’t have prior dealings with the organization or the individuals involved, be careful.

It’s your money, donate to whoever you want. But do it with your eyes wide open and don’t be a rube, because of emotion.

I am also a business owner and my business happens to be an insurance agency that specializes in the hospitality sector. That being said, I do a lot of work in tourist areas that are usually exposed to hurricanes. In these areas the cost of insurance can be very high - usually about 5% of total annual revenues but I've seen it as high as 10% or more. Even worse, if the damage is due to a named storm then a special deductible applies, typically 5% of the total insured value. So if a building was insured for $1,000,000 the deductible would be $50,000 - thats pretty high, so between the high premium and high deductible I can see where some businesses choose to go without insurance. However, businesses should at least purchase liability insurance and business income insurance. Business income insurance pays for lost profits and ongoing expenses - including payroll, in the event of a covered loss. If businesses had this insurance then their employees wouldn't need go fund me campaigns because they would still be getting their paycheck at the insurance company's expense. Unfortunately most businesses don't even realize this coverage exists.

Here in Florida, we also have separate hurricane deductibles, which routinely is about 3-5%. You're right though, business interruption insurance could kick in, in these situations, if they had it. Our business interruption insurance here on our office didn't pay because we didn't have any actual damage here at the office and we were 'only' out of electric for 7 days..

Carol, Yeah Florida is a tough state. Pretty much the entire state is subject to the hurricane deductible. The business interruption deductible is typically 3 days so you would've had 4 days worth of business income coverage if you had sustained physical damage. There is a coverage offered for loss of utilities, generally with a 24 hour deductible but most agents don't even know about it so they don't sell it. It's not all that expensive, but expensive is a relative term. You might want to ask your agent to look into it.

If you have any other questions about insurance just PM me. I suspect the last thing people on this forum want to read about are the nuances of insurance coverages. Unless they have insomnia and are trying to get to sleep

OK, will do.

I have avoided most funds and sent money via moneygram to friends I have made in the BVI over the years. I know exactly where the money is going.
G

To me, that is probably the wisest move.

Go Fund Me is making huge, huge profits on the hurricane disaster. I would rather just send monies directly to the people, but I have seen where goods are being sent through the gfm, and they are supposedly short a bit, so send more...I wish that the Branson and Visar funds were the only ones we would donate to as 8%is pretty steep price to pay to send donations. I had no idea that so many people did not carry at least liability , the post has been an en lighting revaluation to say the least.

Potter's fund is a GoFundMe fund, started and managed by his son. I agree that GoFundMe is a poor fund base because they take so much right off the top. If I had set that one up, I would have used YouCaring.

The fund that I created for Anegada Relief is a YouCaring fund. YouCaring keeps nothing unless you add a "tip" with the donation. The only charge is the standard 0.30 + 2.9% credit card fee, which is unavoidable. To date, contributions to this fund total $76,435, and the total fees to credit card processing are $2,303.18, which is 3.1%.

We've done the same. We consider them family.

Don't you mean the deductible is 5% of what ever the damage is. cheers

Gordaguy, no - the deductible a percentage of whatever the building is insured for, usually ranging from 2% to 5%. This deductible only applies to named storms. Like I said, it is pretty high. Because of this many of my customers go without named storm coverage figuring that most of the time the damage would be less than the deductible and named storm coverage isn't cheap. Then a storm like Irma comes around and they regret that decision.

Carol, thank you for posting this. You captured perfectly what I had been thinking. We have Lloyds through CIL. As Erie said, the deductible is 5% of insured value for a named storm, which is a fraction of our damage. The coverage is not cheap, but as Carol said, it is a cost of doing business. And they have collected our premiums for over 40 years without a claim.

Someone asked how many people are insured. I have spoken with two neighbors who are self insured. Everyone else who has spoken up has insurance, although I suspect a few don't and will be in a bind.

As to the locals, my guess is many generally rely on family in a crisis and, likewise, tend to support family members, often in lieu of building savings. We have supported the people who work for us and on whom we depend, and they, in turn, are going above and beyond to help us recover.

Also the deductihle is based on the insured value, meaning what the total rebuild would cost not what you can sell it for or what it is assessed at. Our house in Florida has the rebuild cost at approx. 75 to 100K more than what we can sell it for.

A local non profit here in town, their hurricane deductible is $62,000. They had some minimal damage, several thousand so not close to the deductible.