Hurricane? What hurricane? Oh, Sandy? She was just a superstorm, say governors in states impacted by Sandy earlier this week. See, if she was a hurricane, homeowners would have to pay out anywhere from 1% to 5% of their homes’ values before insurance coverage would kick in. But if she wasn’t, as the governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are saying, that deductible doesn’t have to be met. That will likely  result in huge savings for homeowners. Nice.

The governors are declaring that Sandy didn’t make landfall as a hurricane, thus exempting affected homeowners from insurers’ hurricane deductibles. Those go into effect when a storm sustains winds of 74 miles per hour or more, or Category 1 hurricane status, reports CNNMoney.

“Homeowners should not have to pay hurricane deductibles for damage caused by the storm,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Dannel Malloy of Connecticut made similar statements, as did Maryland’s insurance regulator.

And while it’s very nice of these governors to make sure homeowners won’t be hit with high deductibles, the was she/wasn’t she question likely would’ve been answered the same way by the insurance industry, says the president of the Insurance Information Institute.

“No one would have been charged the hurricane deductible,” he said, adding that while such a deductible might seem unfair in the first place, the terms under which they would be instituted are clearly stated in insurance policies.

The need for such a deductible arose after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, when insurers found themselves shelling out lots of cash to pay for the $15.5 billion in damages caused by the storm.

Governors say no to hurricane deductibles [CNNMoney]

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