bother to insure their homes we have? funny how they have all got flat screen tvs and all the latest gadgets i cant afford them as pay insurence on my home so i dont expect them to bail me out bon voyage

It's a sad fact of life that toys & gadgets are seen as "must-haves" and insurance is way down the list. Why? Because people think it won't happen to them. And because you can't impress the neighbours with an insurance policy.

Many hurricane katrina refugees bought designer purses with their money.

I pay nearly a thousand a year for buildings and contents insurance - and you would not believe how I have to watch the cash sometimes.

If you don't have insurance then - in our society - yes you should be given shelter and food. After that you should be left to whatever resource you thought justified not bothering to insure yourself.

Does that sound harsh? I suppose its because its payday and its all spoken for taking care of my family,

no ....but a bit of basic help would be ok

Actually, I got flood insurance for a third floor apartment (I'm a student) on the side of a mountain in a city that to my knowledge has never experienced a flood, so you can get flood insurance no matter how rare or unlikely the event is. It just gets much, much cheaper the more unlikely a flood is.

However, I'm still on the fence with this one. Alot of the people flooded out looked like they didn't have a lot of money, so maybe they wouldn't have been able to justify the extra expense of flood insurance pre-Katrina. I heard that many of their houses had simply been handed down through the family--it could be that even with property taxes that was their cheapest living option. But, I hardly think it's a good idea to disincentivize people from getting flood insurance . . .

Those people who misspent their money will feel it in a few years when their latest gadgets aren't so shiny, start to break, and they still don't have homes that they own. It'll all work out.

first off most of them are hard working.
secondly do you think that hard working people can afford everything
and actually in some areas flooding is rare, so insurance companies don't cover natural disasters like that.

and finally, do you contribute to children in need and comic relief.

where is your compassion. you say bon voyage because you want to say your peace but then f*ck off cos you don't want to listen to the answers. lets just hope you don't have to face some kind of tragedy.

I'm also guessing you live at the top of a bank where the crime levels are high, IE: burglary. bon voyage to you, i hope your barge sinks...

I'm sure that there are cases where we would all want to help out (e.g. pensioners who simply couldn't afford to insure their possessions), but as a general rule I would say that, if you reckon it will cost you a fortune to replace all those expensive household goods you owned, then you should have bought just a little less stuff and insured it
You were in effect betting that "It won't happen to me", and you lost. Tough.

I believe in helping out folks who, through no fault of their own, have a hard time; but when it comes to people who spend their money on "toys" and not on essentials like the rest of us have to do and then expect the Government (we tax payers) to come bail them out you are absolutely right. Let them "root, hog, or die" as they used to say before the language "police" stepped in, uninvited, by the way. Happy trails. :-)

Why not the government bailed out all the Lloyd's names when they lost. The Lloyd's names were gambling the people who were flooded were not. I see it as an act of god so the churches should pay. Could any of the major religions possibly say it wasn't their god. As they all claim the one true god is their god. well it's time to pay for your god's flood damage