By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

I wandered into my favorite watering hole only to see my buddy William Hinge VanAnterse III – Trey to his friends – forlornly knocking back a Crown and Diet Coke. I know, it seems like it would be hard to drink forlornly, but Trey was doing it. Fighting back the urge to go to my second-favorite watering hole, I plopped down next to him and asked the inevitable.

“What’s going on Trey? You look a little down in the mouth,” I said.

“I got dropped, dude,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“I got dropped.”

“Man, I’m sorry, but honestly you can’t possibly be all THAT surprised,” I said.

“Why the hell not?” he fired back.

“Well, she was bound to catch you sooner or later with that Waffle House waitress you’re always messing with, and you’re drunk about five nights a week. And let’s see… oh yeah, you go fishing all day every Saturday and Sunday. And there’s the porn….”

“Whoa, man! Keep your voice down, you idiot. I’m not talking about my old lady dropping me. She still hasn’t wised up, as long as she didn’t hear your flapping your gums all the way across town!” Trey hissed.

“Well who dropped you then, your long distance carrier? Your dentist?”

“My insurance company,” Trey said somberly. “The damn insurance company dropped my home-owners insurance after 10 years. Can you believe that mess?”

“Well, a lot of the big companies are trying to limit their exposure in high-risk areas,” I offered.

“High risk! Man, I live in the middle of town. My house is 10 feet above sea level! This is just stupid. I paid those guys for years and now they just dropped me because they don’t want to take the risk of another Ivan or Katrina hitting here. It’s ridiculous!” Trey said, slamming down the rest of this Crown and Diet and motioning for another.

“They are businesses, Trey. They have to make money for their employees and stockholders,” I countered.

“Man, I know that! I’m Old Mobile. Half the people in my family sell insurance. Hell, most of my friends sell insurance. But it’s still not right for the big shots running the companies to suddenly say for no reason that they’re not going to insure in Mobile and Baldwin Counties and to drop good customers like me. Not to mention, it screws the local agents who suddenly aren’t allowed to run their businesses the way they’ve been doing it for years.”

“Maybe you had too many claims,” I offered.

“I only had one that time I drove through the back wall of the garage, but that was seven years ago.”

“Is the house in disrepair?”

“The handyman keeps everything up real good.”

“Maybe the company’s going bankrupt,” I said.

“My insurer had a record profit last year. That’s the part that really kills me. The company executives are all running around giving each other bonuses and what-have-you with my premiums, and I still get the shaft. It’s not fair. If there was just one bankrupt insurance company I might be able to understand this, but they all seem to be doing just fine.”

“Why don’t you just go to another company, Trey?”

“It’s not all that easy, buddy. Like you said, a lot of the big boys have quit writing homeowner’s policies around here and some of the others are talking about it. But I’ve got to have it or my mortgage will get cancelled, so I’ve got to find someone else fast. A couple of my friends said their insurance companies are telling them their homeowner’s might get dropped if they don’t switch all of their auto and life insurance policies to that company.”

“That just sounds like good business,” I said.

“Good business? It sounds like a damn shakedown. They all get together and decide not to offer insurance in lower Alabama, even though you HAVE to have it to own a house, and then the ones who are left say you’d better move all your business to them, or they don’t want you either. I think they used to call that extortion.”

“It’s a free country, Trey. Are you trying to say the insurance companies should be required to insure people they know are going to cost them money?”

“Man, I know they’re businesses, and they’ve got to watch their bottom line, but I’m not asking them to insure a three million dollar house made out of balsa wood on the west end of Dauphin Island. I’m talking about insuring a house that’s already been through at least 10 hurricanes and tropical storms and never had an issue. It just doesn’t seem right for them to cherry-pick customers when they’re providing a regulated service that’s a requirement for anyone who wants to own a home. I suppose it’s too much to ask that an insurance company actually think about paying out damages occasionally instead of just collecting premiums.”

“So what’s the solution?” I asked.

“First, they shouldn’t be able to drop you without cause if you’ve been a customer for more than a year, and there ought to be an appeal process if you are dropped. And second, somebody in Montgomery ought to tell these big companies if they want to do any kind of business in Alabama, they’d damn well better stop dropping people and start writing policies in Mobile and Baldwin again.”

“Well, that might be coming. It’s certainly happened in other states, and there’s been talk of a special legislative session here.”

“Aww, who am I kidding?” Trey said looking sadly into his drink again. “We’re in Alabama. Half the people in the Legislature are bought and paid for by insurance company lobbyists. They’re probably up on Goat Hill having a big laugh about it right now. I think I’d better just get used to the feeling of being dropped.”

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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