Help from rising insurance costs still months away for homeowners

HONOLULU (KHON2) — If you’re looking for relief from skyrocketing insurance costs, it will likely be months before it comes despite Governor Green issuing an emergency proclamation and creating a task force to address the issue.

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The State Insurance Commissioner understands the dire situation homeowners are in.

“I can tell you I’m pushing it as fast as I possibly can,” said Gordon Ito, State Insurance Commissioner. “I mean, you know, for me and seeing what’s happened in the market, we’re doing everything we can as quickly as we can to kind of provide some stability in the market.”

Board members of the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Rund listened to presentations to help deal with skyrocketing insurance premiums across the state.

Governor Green put the wheels in motion in early August with an emergency proclamation to resurrect the HHRF.

However, the state still needs to secure a vendor to operate it and analyze the market before it can determine program and coverage options.

“So that analogy is kind of like restarting an insurance company from scratch,” said Ito. “We’re going through the process of really coming up with a business plan, looking at what the cost, what the options are, and then moving forward ahead.”

That process could take months but when complete, the HHRF would become another insurance company so associations could get policies at a potentially lower rate.

“The board had voted and identified that there is a lack of availability from the private insurance market,” said Ito. “We all recognize what’s happening with the loan market, in particular with condominium associations. And the lack of availability of hurricane coverage was causing a huge disruption. So what we’re doing is trying to get geared up as quickly as we can to offer some stability in the market.”

The Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund was created after Hurricane Iniki in 1992. Ito said it took a while to get the program running because it started from scratch. Since there is now $170 million available, he’s hoping to get it operational quicker than that.