There's no doubt that Hurricane Ike made a terrible mess of things along the Texas Gulf Coast more than a year ago, but the National Law Journal revisits the scene and notes that bad-faith insurors and a new rule issued by the Texas Department of Insurance have created a world of problems for property owners trying to rebuild. Since Ike, the Texas Department of Insurance requires property owners along the coast to prove they have flood insurance before they can buy or renew state-backed windstorm policies. 

That's proving to be salt in the wounds for thousands of storm victims still wrestling over claims with insurers operating in bad faith. The rule change means that storm victims will have to pay more for insurance going forward, and they won't be able to obtain wind policies without first securing flood coverage. Attorneys like Phillip Sanov, who heads the bad-faith insurance practice group at Houston's Lanier Law Firm, report that many insurance companies continue to lowball property owners on claims. "We're hopeful that just like in most places, once a lawyer gets involved, the carrier will start doing closer to the right thing by their policy holder," Sanov says.

Meanwhile, bad faith insurance attorney  Kurt Arnold, a partner in Houston's Arnold & Itkin, tells the NLJ that hundreds of lawsuits remain pending against insurance carriers that have denied or underpaid claims for Hurricane Ike victims. Arnold has more than 150 such lawsuits himself - another colleague has more than 1,000.
"They're sending adjusters out who just don't know what they're doing. I have some claims that had $150,000 in damages, and [the adjuster] wrote up $2,000," he says, adding that the adjusters are often way off. "Some of the houses that are nearly totaled might get written up for $2,000."