Emergency facilities, hospitals, stadiums, basketball courts, convention centers and other government properties around the island are still in shambles, waiting for repair because private insurers have not paid claims.

Hurricane Maria exposed an important deficiency in the process of Puerto Rico’s disaster recovery: underfunded private insurers, who are subject to few regulations.

While blame has been directed at the federal government for not providing timely disaster relief, less attention has been paid to the private companies that had a contractual responsibility to help clients who had paid premiums, many of them for years. Two insurers went out of business after Maria, and many of those that did not collapse offered pennies on the dollar. In many cases, insurers nearly doubled premiums after the hurricane while continuing to fight what the companies described as exorbitant and fraudulent claims.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed.

Aguadilla was left with no compensation for more than the tsunami sirens. The city sued its insurer, MAPFRE Insurance, after the Spanish company paid out $2 million for a destroyed coliseum that experts said would cost up to $20 million to replace, the former mayor said. Also left unusable were a water park, an ice-skating arena and an oceanfront boardwalk.

“Obviously the only way to attack this is with lawyers — without that, they don’t pay,” said José Alfredo Londoño, president of the Astralis condominium association, a 210-unit complex in the Isla Verde neighborhood near San Juan. “They are not going to pay.”