Dale faces tough battle: Katrina still storms insurance chief’s race

The Clarion-Ledger Editorial, 7/15/7

Neck deep in the toughest political race of his storied four-decade career in Mississippi politics, the answer for eight-term incumbent Democratic Insurance Commissioner George Dale may be blowing in the winds of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

With many Gulf Coast insurance customers still in the limbo of litigation or mediation on hurricane-related insurance claims from 2005, Dale’s critics have centered their attacks on Dale’s relationship with insurance companies and the suggestion that it is somehow Dale’s fault that insurance companies have tried to avoid paying claims – particularly in the controversial “wind-versus-water” cases.