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Editorials
Monday, December 4, 2000Hurricane Relief Fund
served its purposeThe issue: The Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund is going out of business after providing protection in the years following Hurricane Iniki.
THOUSANDS of Hawaii homeowners jarred eight years ago by Hurricane Iniki can remember the after shock -- the risk of being deprived of insurance coverage. After most private insurance companies stopped offering coverage, the state created the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund to fill the gap. Those companies now have reentered the market and the state fund is being phased out, as planned.
The state fund effectively capped what the insurance industry could lose from hurricane claims.
The fund is financed by fees on mortgages recorded in the state, premiums from insurance policies issued by the fund and an annual assessment on private insurance companies.
However, when years passed without another hurricane striking Hawaii, companies began issuing their own coverage. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. moved out of the state's hurricane relief fund last year after concluding that it was less expensive to handle the insurance internally than having it administered by the state fund.
About 80,000 Relief Fund policies will lapse over the next year and homeowners will be able to buy hurricane coverage through their private insurance providers. At its peak, the Relief Fund provided hurricane insurance for 160,000 homeowners in Hawaii.
The state hurricane fund was envisioned as a temporary solution for homeowners. Insurance companies appreciated its cap for their potential losses and objected to abolishing it until realizing it was more economical to handle hurricane coverage without it.
The post-Iniki experience can be cited as evidence that including hurricane coverage in homeowners' insurance can be economical for home homeowners and insurance companies alike.
Pinochet finally
faces prosecution
HUMAN-RIGHTS advocates were disappointed earlier this year when Britain's home secretary allowed Gen. Augusto Pinochet to return home to Chile after his arrest on human-rights charges. However, Pinochet arrived in Santiago to be greeted by an array of criminal complaints and now faces criminal prosecution for atrocities. His opponents can be relieved that he finally will be brought to justice.
The 85-year-old former dictator has been blamed for the death or disappearance of 3,197 people during his 17-year dictatorship of Chile. He will be prosecuted for 55 deaths and 18 disappearances during the infamous Caravan of Death, in which a military death squad traveled the countryside following his 1973 coup.
Victims and their families accuse Pinochet of being the "intellectual author" of the death squad. "This is the mission that founded the dictatorship," said Chilean investigative reporter Patricia Verdugo. Pinochet ruled the country until 1990 but remained commander of the army until 1997, when he was made senator for life under the constitution he wrote.
A Spanish warrant alleging human-rights abuses was used to arrest Pinochet in October 1998 in London, where he was recovering from surgery on a herniated disc. Britain's High Court ruled that Pinochet was protected by diplomatic immunity but a House of Lords panel reversed the decision and ruled that he could be extradited to Spain. Home Secretary Jack Straw later determined that Pinochet had a "memory deficit" that rendered him incapable of understanding legal proceedings and allowed his return to Chile.
Since then, Chilean Judge Juan Guzman has been relentless in going after the general. He has ordered psychiatric and physical tests to determine if he is fit to stand trial. Meanwhile, Guzman placed Pinochet under house arrest.
Jose Miguel Vivanco of the New York-based group Human Rights Watch called the indictment "an excellent development" and said it helps "re-establish the credibility of the Chilean judiciary."
The issue of whether Pinochet is mentally fit to stand trial may cause the case to drag on for years. However, the indictment and house arrest are important steps toward Chile attaining international respect for its judicial system.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
