Lloyd's of London has insured famous breasts and the safety of a Frenchman who wanted to cross the English Channel in a bathtub, but it won't insure Cindy Stacy's condominium on Harbor Island anymore.

The Stacys are not alone. Despite record profits last year, a growing number of insurance providers are refusing to write wind and flood policies for vulnerable properties amid predictions that this hurricane season could be worse than last.

Companies that still provide wind and flood insurance are dramatically increasing their premiums.

For the Stacys, Christmas tree farmers from Maryland who bought their condo east of Beaufort in South Carolina's Sea Islands a few years ago with an eye toward retirement, that meant a new insurance carrier this year and a $4,452 premium, up from $2,020 last year, Cindy Stacy said.

Stacy said she and her husband had hoped to cover the cost of maintaining the condo by renting it out until they're ready to retire.

"That's not looking quite as realistic now," she said.

Doubled premiums for flood and wind damage insurance are hardly atypical, local agents say.

"Some have tripled," Jacki Jinks, an agent at Statewide Insurance on Lady's Island, said this week. "It's been pretty rough for us. People get upset. They don't understand we're just the messenger."

Businesses are being hit as well.

Wal-Mart announced in May that it would no longer insure its properties against wind damage because of rising premiums. Local businesses that can't afford to take on that risk, however, are paying up.

Chip Dinkins, owner of Plums Restaurant in downtown Beaufort, said his wind and hail insurance premium doubled this year. It's still a relatively minor expense, he said, but comes on the heels on increased fuel prices that have driven up a variety of operating costs.

Clarence Pico, an agent with Island Realty on Harbor Island, said he didn't think new home buyers would be deterred by insurance costs.

"If you're buying property on the coast you can probably afford the insurance," he said.

But Pico said he had received several calls from condominium owners worried about rising costs and wondering if they'd have to sell.

"They're saying, 'My God, what's happening?'" he said. "It probably is going to push some of them into the market."

Blame it on Katrina, and post record profits

Katrina missed the Lowcountry by about 700 miles, but insurance sources say the hurricane that wrecked New Orleans is the largest cause of rising insurance premiums here.

The worst of seven costly storms to hit the U.S. in the last two years, Katrina alone caused an estimated $40 billion in insurable losses, rocking the disaster insurance market and leading to an industrywide re-examination of wind and flood damage policies, said Debbie Miller, personal lines manager at Hull and Company in Charlotte, a broker active in the Lowcountry who works with a number of providers, including Lloyd's of London.

Even after those massive payouts, however, the companies that provide homeowner's insurance in the U.S. last year posted record profits totaling nearly $45 billion, according to industry filings, an 11.7 percent increase over the previous year.

At least part of the explanation for that discrepancy is that insurance companies insure themselves against catastrophic events. The so-called reinsurance industry is estimated to have absorbed about half the total $60 billion in insured hurricane losses during 2005. As a result, insurance companies emerged with a profit last year but are now facing much higher reinsurance costs and are passing those costs on to consumers, Miller said.

Where insurance premiums go from here depends in large part on the weather, she said, but up appears more likely than down. Insurers are keeping a nervous eye on predictions this hurricane season, which officially began June 1, could be even worse than last, when Katrina flooded New Orleans and Hurricane Rita damaged oil drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Even a quiet season, Miller said, would likely do little to allay fears that the natural world has become permanently more violent and expensive.

"I wouldn't expect rates to come down in the near future," she said. "I think insurers will continue to be very careful and reanalyze their risks."

Miller said she doesn't think that reanalysis will lead the industry as a whole to abandon hurricane coverage in storm-prone areas, but as the Stacys found, some companies are backing away. Jinks said she sees a growing number of providers refusing to write new policies or renew existing policies for properties they deem as high risks. Other companies, she said, are agreeing to write wind damage policies only when customer sign up for "the whole package," including auto insurance.

As insurers seek to reduce their exposure, demand for policies is only growing. Katrina and its sister spectacles have driven many coastal property owners to seek more comprehensive coverage, while development along the Southeastern coast continues to bring in new customers.

"The market is getting very tight," said Allison Dean Love, the executive director of the non-profit S.C. Insurance News Service. "People need to realize the risk and the cost they're assuming by living on the coast, and they need to do their homework before they buy."

What can be done

Some companies are offering wind and flood policies this year with deductibles as high as 10 percent of property value, up from a 2 percent maximum deductible last year, Jinks said. High deductible equals lower premium, but at 10 percent the owner of a $200,000 home would have to pay the first $20,000 in repairs.

"You're really self-insuring to a large extent at that point," Jinks said. "But a lot of people, that's all they can afford."

Like other coastal states in the Southeast, South Carolina is also considering expanding its state-mandated pool of last-resort wind and hail insurance, which provides coverage to beach property owners unable to obtain or afford insurance on the private market. One possible change would be to expand the geographical eligibility requirements to allow more customers to buy from the state pool, which could relieve some of the stress on the market, Love said.

Property owners can also take steps to reduce their premiums. Installing hurricane-proof glass, reinforced garage doors and the like can cut insurance costs by as much as 10 percent, she said.

But in any case, Love said the uninsured cannot afford to wait. Wind policies don't take effect until 15 days after they are purchased, and flood policies don't take effect for 30 days -- rules designed to prevent people from waiting until a storm is already brewing to buy coverage.

Prices are rising, demand is growing and the busiest part of the hurricane season is approaching. But the news is not all bad:

It's still as easy as ever to join the estimated 20,000 people with insurance policies against alien abduction, and premiums are holding quite steady.