HPIA moratorium against BI residents is illegal IMHO

[whtviper1]

You keep speaking about how this is "illegal". Let's see some actual law that makes it illegal. Seems the state thinks it is legal if they are passing bills. If it is really illegal, why worry?

[pbmaise]

I received a reply from
Representative Joy
Before you accuse me of burning down Puna, PLEASE
read my original bills before the chairs of the
committee, not me, changed them. So that you are able
to track legislation better, please consider going to a
Public Access workshop - they had one in Pahoa last
month and they have one once a year. For help now, go
to Hawaii Legislature's Public Access Room Workshops
These are the bills I introduced and to ensure that I
had a good chance of passing a bill, I spoke to the
Insurance Commissioner beforehand to get his support:
HB370: Required renewals (look at the original bill- this
was opposed by the Insurance Council but supported
by the Insurance Commissioner). To ensure that at
least one version passed, I asked Sen. Shimabukuro to
pass the companion senate bill. The House CPC chair
refused to even grant a hearing on this bill but the
Senate heard it, changed it and
deferred it.
The House CPC chair informed me that he deferred it in
favor of HB380 which he felt had better chance of
passing through the entire house. HB380 required the
removal of the HPIA moratorium: This passed the
house.
The original HB737 merely required the expansion of
the Hurricane Fund to include lava disasters. However,
after this was amended twice, it was gutted and
replaced by wording from HB370 which required
renewals and HB380 which lifted the moratorium. i.e.
HB737 is a conglomeration of HB370 &
HB380.
Remember, this is not an authoritarian regime so we
need 26 representatives and 13 senators to pass a bill
before Gov. Ige sees it and we need him to also agree.
Thus, HB737 as amended requires renewals, but allows
5% non-renewals to appease those representatives &
senators who agree with the Insurance Council, but
also requires the lifting of the moratorium so that those
who are not renewed are able to get insurance through
HPIA.
Without the amendments, there is no statute requiring
renewals because HB370 in its present form died.
HB737 passed 3rd reading today but the senate may
amend it again once it crosses over but its unlikely
because the latest version matches the senate version:
SB737. If you look at SB737's history, you will see the
original language was gutted and replaced with the
language of my bills...altho it has Sen. Ruderman as
the introducer.
I hope the above answers your questions. We only have
the best interests of Puna at heart.
Rep. Joy San Buenaventura

[pbmaise]

My reply to Joy

Aloha Joy,

Thank you so much for your detailed reply.

It wasn't until my second reading of your reply I caught this point you made:

" Thus, HB737 as amended requires renewals, but allows 5% non-renewals to appease those representatives & senators who agree with the Insurance Council, but also requires the lifting of the
moratorium so that those who are not renewed are able to
get insurance through HPIA."

The problem I had was not understanding this 5% non-renewal was in reference to non-HPIA policies. I thought the HPIA policies were at risk.

Non-HPIA policies from all but Lloyd's have been next to impossible to get for about 10 years or more. One sad thing about this is the people that still have direct policies with carriers like State Farm tend to be senior citizens. Switching to HPIA will not be easy for most.

I have posted your letter on-line at Punaweb and City-Data.

I most certainly appreciate your efforts. I apologize about my prior comment. Sleep well.

Philip B. Maise

[WaikikiBoy]

Maybe I just don't understand all the issues fully enough, but to be honest, most of these posts read like a bunch of jibberish to me.

My understanding is that HPIA is a State run agency set up to provide Insurance in high risk zones where private Insurer's are not willing to write policies. This has allowed many people to buy and build in risky area's that they otherwise could not have bought or built.

Now, HPIA is trying to place a moratorium on (1) Writing new policies in these high risk zones, and (2) providing increases in insurance in these high risk zones. But they are not cancelling existing policies ... just not writing new policies. Is this correct ?

And ... currently, private Insurers could choose not to renew policies they have written if they determine the risk is no longer aceptable. That has never been an issue before because those dropped by private Insurance could always join HPIA. But if HPIA is not writing new policies, then those dropped by private insurance carriers would have no where to go.

So the legislation in question allows HPIA to no longer write new policies (but keep existing policies) and required private insurers to renew 95% of their policies.

Am I understanding all this correct ? And if so ... the net impact is: (1) Possibly 5% of policy holders with existing policies with Private insurers may have their policies dropped (95% will not). (2) No existing HPIA policy holder will lose coverage. (3) Only people potentially at risk here of a problem are those with bare land who would not be able to get coverage in the future if they decided to build a new house. But these people don't have coverage currently ... they would only be at risk to not be able to get coverage for a home in the future.

Just want to be sure I understand this all correctly. And if I do, I don't see what the huge issue is. Because government rules and regulations always change and those changes can sometime impact a private property owners abilities to use the land. It seems in this case, no one will lose their current HPIA Policies, only 5% of Private Insurance policy holder may lose their coverage, and the "moratorium" is simply the government saying they will no longer write new Insurance policies to people who do not currently have a policy.

Just want to be certain I correctly understand the true net impact of the issue being discussed.

[Jonah K]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

Let's see some actual law that makes it illegal. Seems the state thinks it is legal if they are passing bills. If it is really illegal, why worry?

While it might be considered "unethical," there is no law that makes it "illegal." Unfortunately, some folks around here might not have a clear understanding of the legislative process in Hawaiʻi and the amount of "horse-trading" that's involved to get legislation passed.

[pbmaise]

Everyone in LZ 1&2

Here is link to Act HB737 that was approved by House
and now at Senate.

THERE ARE BIG PROBLEMS

See Measure Status

Notice as an excuse for HPIA to not lift the moratorium,
they can say other insurance is still available:

" " §431:21- Issuance of new policies;
removal of moratorium. If residential
property insurance is unavailable due to a
moratorium on the issuance of policies on
property situated in a lava zone and if the
mayor of the county of Hawaii has issued a
proclamation declaring that a state of
emergency exists in that lava zone due to the
threat of imminent disaster from a lava flow,
the association shall remove its moratorium.
For residential properties in the lava zone
that do not have property insurance coverage,
upon the moratorium's removal, the association
shall issue new policies and may provide a
waiting period no longer than six months for
the policy coverage to take effect. ""

Joy's letter basically said in exchange for allowing
cancellations of non-HPIA policies, that the HPIA
moratorium would be lifted. By reading the paragraph
above I don't see that.

The bill would have been better with the insertion of
the word "conventional".

Everyone save that letter I posted from Joy, I will
forward to you by email if requested.

It is so important since this may come into a legal fight
between us and HPIA. If they still keep the moratorium
in place they are directly violating the intention of the
legislators.

Further, as an excuse to not lift the moratorium, all that
HPIA need say is the Mayor has not issued a
Proclamation. If a Mayor wishes to stop new insurance
policies all the Mayor need do is fail to issue a
proclamation.

Notice what this bill really does:
It ends all new HPIA policies unless it is last available
option.

This bill can stop a buyer of existing homes from
getting HPIA because other insurance options
exist or Mayor didn't issue a Proclamation.

The 6 month waiting period is another issue ripe with
problems:
1. Can a builder sell a new home? Home insurance
during construction in LZ 1&2 is difficult. Is any firm
offering it. Without, being required to write on a new
home, builders will be even more reluctant to build. Yes,
perhaps not a bad thing but tell that to the people
owning vacant land that bought it to build their
retirement home.

2. "The lava zone" means properties on entirely
different volcanoes may be subject 6 month wait. How
is an insurance firm to say which home was already in
the path of a flow?

Again, this problem stems from current Lava Zones
being stagnant without any basis in actual flow in
foreseeable future.

The public has had zero chance to provide input into
the bill totally rewritten by the committee chairman.
No one here even was aware of revised language till I
brought it to light, and a quick Google search yields
zero other websites that mention big changes to
insurance law.

So what to do now:

Contact Senate ASAP

to add "conventional"
Delete sentence "and if the mayor...lava zone"

[pbmaise]

It appears legislators didn't send the bill to governor, or governor didn't sign it. Instead it was sent back to Commerce and Judiciary and Labor committees for review.

I could find a calendar for JDL

Committees

However I don't see it there.

Note: My series of emails claiming Bill was illegal and fact Bill went back for review are coincidental.

PS Waikikboy, I great apologize for not replying to your most excellent post and summary. Your understanding of situation is correct. The big problem again is that the insurance moratorium for HPIA was imposed in the first place. The past few months clearly demonstrated that the knee jerk reaction to the flow was over blown.

PPS My e-mail to HVO (USGS) accusing them of putting political reasons first were also coincidental. I requested a downgrade of the alert level from Warning to Watch. HVO downgraded alert on same day.