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Hurricane Marty was a Cat 5 as it approached land!! This was a SERIOUS hurricane! Those of you who may note a distinct absence of "during the storm" pics....you're RIGHT! I will admit, that the thought DID cross my mind to go out & take some "during" pics, however, the fact that the brunt of Marty's force hit during the night, combined with the fact that sanity reigned = you're viewing "aftermath" pics here! I do have several "during through the window" pics, but the flash on the glass makes most not worth posting!

Wind alone played a cameo role compared to the flying coco palm debris....

Marty also brought a LOT of rain with it! A little more of my aftermath....

Local area aftermath....

Devastation at La Paz Marina....Many of these boats with especially "high waterlines" were sitting on the bottom! :(

Marina adjacent to La Paz Marina....I don't remember the name!

More from "No Name" Marina! Sad to say, but I later heard "through the grapevine" that a very high percentage of the boats moored in both these marinas were NOT insured!

I read somewhere online recently that in this bad economy folks are cutting back where they can and a for a lot of folks that includes insurance. I knew a guy that let his insurance policy expire on a mountain cabin he had owned for over thirty years. It burned down to the ground the following summer in the great Sequoia fire a couple of years ago.

I joked with him that I saw his agent up in the area with a gasoline can and matches...

Sobering pictures. I certainly don't blame you for not going out . I remember that storm and La Paz was pretty close to the center.

We were in San Juanico for that one, but we only got about 45 or 50 mph winds as it passed on the other side of the mountains.

We rarely get big wind from hurricanes, however, since our new house will be VERY exposed, we're trying to design everything to withstand 100 mph + winds. May never happen again in our lives (last time was Lester in 1992), but if it does we want as much advantage as possible.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

I read somewhere online recently that in this bad economy folks are cutting back where they can and a for a lot of folks that includes insurance. I knew a guy that let his insurance policy expire on a mountain cabin he had owned for over thirty years. It burned down to the ground the following summer in the great Sequoia fire a couple of years ago.

I joked with him that I saw his agent up in the area with a gasoline can and matches...

From what I've been able to find, Mexico homeowners insurance is very expensive. I wonder how many people buy it?

Insurance is a funny thing. Where I work there were some houses that were lost in a landslide. None were covered for land movement, but one of the homes caught fire as it slid down. It was covered because it burned. He was the only one to collect.

Where is that little emoticon jumping up & down while waving one arm in the air? I buy it! And it IS SPENDY because of the convoluted coverage you have to include just so they'll also allow you to get hurricane coverage! My annual premium currently is $1,286 USD! Because I'm not willing to face potential major damage or loss of my substantial investment, I'm one of those weird people who carries full coverage on my car, too! Coming from an environment/country where having your home & vehicle insured was not an option, makes it impossible for me to even conceive of not having these two big ticket items insured! Now, insuring my body is a whole nuther matter....it's not covered....well, it's COVERED, just not by insurance! Makes sense to me since I'm the youngest in my family & have no next of kin younger than me!

I was paying about $250 USD on a $275K casa pre-Hurricane Marty! The entire Mexican Insurance Home Owners industry took a horrendous hit between Hurricane Marty & John and their rates sky-rocketed! Because of that, I valued this place lower for insurance purposes than my first place & the rate is still 4X higher! :( Plus there is a fixed 2% of insured value deductible for hurricane damage!

I was hoping you'd jump in. I didn't want to be rude and ask if you had it ;)
Coming from the medical field we're adamant about having good health insurance (= $$$). It's going to frustrating deciding if we will pay a pricey home insurance policy also

Ain't you figured out by now that I'm a sharing kinda person? If you ask anything I prefer not to make public, then you'll most likely get a private message! ;)

Will either of you get any level of continued health coverage as part of a retirement package....or are you bailing too young to qualify?

Originally Posted by longlegsinlapaz

Will either of you get any level of continued health coverage as part of a retirement package....or are you bailing too young to qualify?

No matter how long we stay, we won’t have continuing medical benefits. Neither of our employers provide that benefit. We can stay on my group policy from work if I pay full boat, but its $1400/month for PPO and $819/mo for HMO, and it only covers care in California – if you are a resident, which we won’t be.

We looked into international insurance and found Multinational Underwriters (MNU) to be a pretty good policy. It’s under $500/mo for the both of us and it’s a PPO. The downside is it doesn’t cover some pretty important diseases for the first six months, so we would have to keep my work policy, paying two policies until the 6-month waiting period passed. It’s also pretty lax on preventative care coverage, and it restricts pre-existing conditions. I don’t really have any health problems, but due to a couple of work injuries I’ll probably need some follow up care someday that would have restricted coverage.

Since we’ll actually be South Dakota "residents", I started looking at options there. I found a Blue Shield PPO policy for both of us for $540/mo with no restrictions. I haven’t found any downsides yet. It covers throughout all the U.S. and has international benefits also: http://www.wellmark.com/individual/index.asp

I’m going to have Ola look it over more closely as she’s more familiar with the in’s and out’s of medical insurance, but unless we find some huge downside I think this is what we’ll go with.

Everybody knows that's "Frank's Boat & Marina". :P

OOPS!!! I guess they do now! I sure hope the real owners don't mind the name change!