Insurance may cover US $25-35 million

As more pictures of the devastation in the south emerge, it is doubly disheartening to think that many of those affected were also uninsured. But for those people far sighted enough to pay the premiums, a cheque from the insurance company will do much to ease the pain. One local insurer, Regent Insurance Limited, has gone so far as to set up a field office in the south to deal with claims from the affected areas. According to C.E.O. Tony Flynn, the situation is under control, but policyholders need to exercise a little patience.

Tony Flynn, C.E.O., Regent Insurance

“The process on the policy is that you must make a claim in writing within fifteen days. Obviously the amount of devastation down there, I would think that within the first three or four days everybody has been either on the phone, into the local agent, or into our makeshift office. I think we’re on top of it by now. Anybody who hasn’t yet made a claim and people make claims by email, especially people not living in Belize…I would think most people have made claims by now. But I don’t think anybody is going to be very tight on that fifteen-day rule anyway and most people will be visited well within that.

People have got to be patient. You must realise that we normally get, say fifteen property claims a year and then suddenly we’ve got a hundred and fifty properties to see straightaway, after a two-hour storm. I think we’ve done pretty good.”

Flynn estimates that Hurricane Iris will cost insurers anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five million U.S. dollars in claims.