The Biloxi City Council voted this morning to buy fire insurance to cover city property for the next year, but Mayor A.J. Holloway said he’s unsure if the city’s insurance issues have been resolved.
Meeting for a third time in three days, council members questioned aspects of a proposal that would have originally provided $102 million in coverage for fire, flood and wind policies for city properties, and coverage for automobiles and equipment. The policy, for $1.3 million, included coverage provided by the so-called windpool program, the National Flood Insurance Program and two commercial carriers.
Councilmembers, however, opted to spend $786,000 for a $92 million package to provide limited wind and flood coverage and $59 million in fire coverage. However, councilmembers declined to approve a $10 million policy that was designed to cover the per-building limits of $500,000 for flood and $1 million for wind in the windpool and national flood policies. The $10 million policy would have cost $1.3 million.
“I’m concerned that we’re leaving ourselves vulnerable with this limited policy,” said Holloway, who earlier pointed out to council members that if a tornado were to destroy the $6.4 million Donald Snyder Sr. Community Center in west Biloxi, the approved policy would provide no more than $1 million to rebuild the facility.
“I’m certainly for saving money, but you have to protect these investments. FEMA’s going to question why they’re helping us rebuild our community and we’re not being responsible enough to have prudent levels of insurance coverage. It’s like we’ve said all along in this recovery process, we need to make sure we’re being accountable.”
