Thinks increase is unfair

To the editor: Once again, property owners in Brunswick and other coastal counties get slammed with another property insurance increase. Whatever happened to the insurance concept of “shared risk?”

Residents from the rest of the state, as well as the rest of the country, come to the N.C. beaches every year to enjoy what our area has to offer. If coastal county property owners cannot afford to pay these ridiculous insurance increases, homes will go up for sale, home prices will drop worse than they are already and businesses will close, including grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and other businesses that tourists need and use when they visit us.

We should pay our fair share of insurance and the risk is probably higher in coastal counties (I’m not sure how much since I’ve heard of worse flooding inland than in the coastal counties from hurricanes and other storms), but the original 70 percent request and even the subsequent 30 percent increase is hard to swallow, on top of 25 percent increases last year.

Five percent for Raleigh? Please!

This is poor timing given the current economic situation and the fact many coastal county property owners are retirees have been “slam dunked” by Wall Street and poor federal government regulation and oversight.

As our representatives, I hope you will take our message to the insurance commissioner. He should at least have the decency to show up at local meetings to explain the basis and reasoning for these insurance increases and stop hiding behind defense attorneys and then consider a fairer sharing of the increase among all property owners in N.C.