Many in New Orleans can’t afford insurance

“When someone calls me asking for a quote, the first thing I ask is, 'What’s your ZIP code?’ Unfortunately, your ZIP code is your ZIP code. There’s no way around it,” says insurance broker Juliana Williamson of Parish National Insurance Agency, a local broker.

Those intent on staying within a City of New Orleans ZIP code are drastically revising how much house they can afford.

Tulane University professor Claudiney Pereira thought he’d found a deal: A house within walking distance of the classroom where he teaches macroeconomics. He made an offer, a closing date was set and the professor bought cardboard boxes in anticipation of his move.

But like so many others, the deal was derailed when he discovered the only coverage he could get was through the state-run plan and would cost him $400 on top of his $1,800-a-month mortgage. Now, he and his wife plan to look for a house that’s 30 percent cheaper — a budget that likely will price him out of the neighborhood, forcing him to drive, instead of walk, to work.

To be sure, there are other financial factors at work. Both the Pereiras and the Espinozas balked at the high property taxes in the Garden District, while in the 300-year-old alleys of the French Quarter, attorney Vallie Schwartz knew she would also need to budget for parking, as well as for the price of new furniture. Like many in New Orleans, she lost everything when her home on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain flooded last year.

The impact of insurance on New Orleans mirrors what’s already happened in hurricane-prone Florida.

There, insurance is to blame, say experts, for the what may be the beginning of an exodus from the Florida Keys. Over the last five years, over 4 percent of the population of Monroe County, which encompasses the Keys, has uprooted itself, according to census figures.

Residents there speak of insurance premiums doubling every year, forcing some homeowners to “go naked” — having no insurance at all. Realtors say inventories are at more than double what they were a year ago and “For sale” signs seem never to come down.

One of them is now pitched outside the home of Barbara and Harold Polsky in Port Richey, Fla., who began packing their bags, planning to move to Roanoke, Va., after their insurance premium doubled this spring.

“It broke our hearts to put up that sign. My wife hoped to die in this house. We love it here, but we just can’t afford it anymore,” said Polsky, 49. “I know what’s coming in New Orleans because we’re living it now.”

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