New Hampshire’s top insurance officials have created a new team to help with one of the often invisible difficulties of disaster recovery: the paperwork.
Their new Weather Catastrophe Response Team is expected to organize community outreach to help residents understand their insurance coverage and file claims in the aftermath of extreme storms.
Intense rain and flooding is getting more intense in the Northeast with climate change. New Hampshire has seen more frequent disasters in the past five years than in other decades since the 1980s.
“My focus is on the data,” said New Hampshire Insurance Commissioner DJ Bettencourt. “What the data says, without question, without debate, is the number of these catastrophic storms is increasing. The severity of these storms is getting worse.”
Each storm, Bettencourt said, comes with individual tragedies. In some cases, the insurance department can step in to help.
“They are some of the most difficult, heartbreaking conversations that I have here as commissioner,” he said. “When we're talking about the flooding in Cheshire County last year, they were some of the most difficult conversations that I've had in 20 years of public service.”
The Weather Catastrophe Response Team is part of an effort to take a more proactive approach to working with residents on insurance issues after disasters. Most people, Bettencourt said, don’t know much about their insurance policy, except for the fact that it exists and they must pay the premiums.
“Now they’re trying to navigate a very complex, very technical document for the first time while being under a great deal of stress,” he said.
The team will focus on community engagement — including setting up in places that have been hit with severe weather to address insurance questions, locate policy documents and help file claims.
“When people experience these types of disasters, people don't know what to do. They don't know what that next step is,” said Keith Nyhan, the Insurance Department’s deputy commissioner. “So having that person there, present, who can kind of help navigate that becomes very important.”
State insurance officials have also encouraged New Hampshire residents to consider buying flood insurance. Flood damage is not generally covered under homeowner’s insurance, and homes are at risk even if they’re not in a designated floodplain.
Officials are also working on a grant program to help residents make their homes more resilient to disasters.
“It could be something as simple as helping consumers with financial resources to cut limbs and trees back away from the home,” Nyhan said. “It could be flashing of chimneys or weatherproofing windows and foundations, but it's every little bit that can help make that home more resilient.”
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