Business-breaking rate

Your reporting on proposals to jack up the cost of wind insurance in coastal North Carolina has been seriously misleading. Start with the accompanying photograph of beachfront cottages succumbing to erosion. That's a flood insurance issue. It has nothing to do with wind coverage, but it sure says "frivolous rich."

You write of "owners of beachfront mansions." In fact, most of the North Carolinians who are nominated for insurance rate hikes of 50 percent to 70 percent own neither beachfront property nor mansions. They live in ordinary houses in safe coastal communities, such as mine, Beaufort.

We are already paying through the nose (because our lenders insist) for coverage from the N.C. Insurance Underwriting Association. My house, so far as I know, has suffered no serious hurricane damage in 150 years. In our seven years here, two category 2 hurricanes have passed right over us; we've had no insurance claims. I believe the $4,000 to $5,000 a year I pay in premiums has gone straight to Florida and the Gulf Coast.

In recent years, hurricanes have done more property damage in Raleigh, Charlotte and Asheville than in Carteret County.

We are trying to hang onto a small business -- a bed and breakfast -- during this recession. Insurance cost about $10,000 in 2008. Another $3,000 in 2009 could be the killer.

David DuBuisson

Beaufort