February 25, 2007

Behind the Times Select screen:

...if all there was to the story were reasonable people contesting water versus wind, it would be sane. In general, that is how things have played out in Louisiana and Alabama, which don’t have the same kind of litigious environment as Mississippi does.

That does not mean it is not tragic for those whose houses were destroyed by flood in those states, nor does it mean that there isn’t something seriously wrong with an insurance system that forces these kind of water-wind distinctions. What it does mean is that the people in those two states aren’t trying to abrogate the terms of the contract they’ve signed with their insurers. It is hard to see how an economy can function if contracts are not upheld.

But in Mississippi, the insurance contract has been largely tossed aside by the power of litigation — and the belief that the insurance companies, especially State Farm, should pay up no matter what the cause of the damage. Not that anyone is about to characterize it that way.

And Kimberley Strassel at the WSJ chronicles Sen. Lott's "ferocious campaign of political revenge". More: Coyote Blog.