Insurance Battles Add to Frustration and Loss

Hurricane Katrina may have destroyed John Tuepker's Long Beach, Miss., home, but it's his insurance company that's really wreaking havoc with his life.

History teacher John Tuepker, who lost his home and all his possessions, is one of thousands of hurricane victims battling their insurance companies over coverage of their losses. (Photo by David Purdy)

"The problem is that insurance companies are calling it a flood and they are not honoring their hurricane insurance," says Tuepker, a history teacher at Long Beach High School and past president of the Long Beach Federation of Teachers.

Fourteen houses on Tuepker's beachfront block were flattened during the hurricane. And every one of them was owned by a member of his extended family, including his 90-year-old mother-in-law. Altogether, he says, 1,500 homes were demolished and just as many sustained severe water damage in the community of nearly 20,000 residents sandwiched between Pass Christian and Gulfport.

"My mother-in-law says the first thing she wants to do is build back," says Tuepker. "The rest of us are saying whoa. We put all our life savings into our house and aren't collecting from insurance. If we rebuild and it is destroyed again, we would be impoverished."

Tuepker and his wife Claire were fortunate to find a four-room apartment in nearby Gulfport. And Tuepker is back in the classroom, albeit without his collection of  videos from the PBS "American Experience" television series, which were swallowed by the storm along with most of his personal effects. "They say a community can't start to heal until the schools are open," Tuepker says, noting that upward of 85 percent of high school students are back in class.

Just how long that healing process is going to take, however, largely hinges on insurance companies—or elected officials who, prodded by their constituents, are willing to take them to task. "We really do need to get some attention. Our members are losing $200,000 to $300,000 of coverage," says Tuepker, whose own insurance company claims his home, now a slab of concrete, is flood-damaged and therefore not covered.