←back to thread

Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
476 points spking | 6 comments | 17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
Show context
api_or_ipa ◴[17 Jan 25 01:54 UTC] No.42733229[source]▶
Every era has it's Malthusian alarmists and without fail, each has been proven wrong by exactly the same thing the author decries and says won't work this time: technological change and adaption. There's no reason to think this time will be any different. Will some places become uninsurable? Sure, plenty of places over time have become uninsurable. Will the whole world became uninsurable? Absolutely not, because we are quite good at adaptation in the face of adversity.

The issue in California is not the price of insurance, it's availability because of extremely myopic ballot initiatives that are entirely political in nature. Should insurance be fairly priced, then the market can force people out of uninsurable areas and into areas with far less chance to burn.

replies(10): >>42733284 #>>42733296 #>>42733323 #>>42733356 #>>42733401 #>>42734178 #>>42734317 #>>42735488 #>>42735623 #>>42740933 #
colechristensen ◴[17 Jan 25 02:04 UTC] No.42733284[source]▶
You can't live in places where your home is going to get destroyed every couple of decades by wildfires, floods, or hurricanes. There are more of these places now because of climate change and a lot of people are going to have to migrate over the next century, like huge global migrations. Insurance can't/won't allow a bunch of people to deny this reality any more (or at least much longer). LA is going to be pretty uninsurable unless the local governments do a lot to mitigate the fire risk.
replies(3): >>42733317 #>>42733366 #>>42734269 #
1. teractiveodular ◴[17 Jan 25 02:17 UTC] No.42733366[source]▶
As the 173 million strong population of Bangladesh can attest, they can and do live in such places.

"Each year, on average, 31,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) (around 21% of the country) is flooded. During severe floods the affected area may exceed two-thirds of the country, as was seen in 1998."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Bangladesh

Most of the world does not want to aspire to be Bangladesh, but humans have been living in extremely disaster-prone areas for millennia because the short-term benefits (rich soil etc) outweigh the occasional catastrophic losses.

replies(2): >>42733506 #>>42734561 #
2. redwall_hp ◴[17 Jan 25 02:37 UTC] No.42733506[source]▶
Another example: Japan has many quakes per year and has a strangely high percentage of the world's active volcanos. People have lived there for a very long time, built to accommodate it (both traditionally, using timber and expecting to rebuild often, or with modern earthquake-hardened architecture), and is now a top five economy by GDP.

And, well, most of the US is just a hanger-on to California's economy.

replies(1): >>42733950 #
3. trescenzi ◴[17 Jan 25 04:03 UTC] No.42733950[source]▶
> In 2023, California's gross domestic product (GDP) was about $3.9 trillion, comprising 14% of national GDP ($27.7 trillion). Texas and New York are the next largest state economies, at 9% and 8%, respectively.[1]

CA is a huge economy but by no means is the US just CA + 49 other states. Might be fairer to say it’s CA+NY+TX+FL but at that point you’re just aggregating the population.

[1]:https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-economy/

replies(1): >>42740185 #
4. daedrdev ◴[17 Jan 25 06:08 UTC] No.42734561[source]▶
The cost of labor is extremely high in the US compared to Bangladesh, and that along with building standards, minimum lot size, minimum floor space requirements and required low density zoning (lmao) make these two case very different
replies(1): >>42736964 #
5. HPsquared ◴[17 Jan 25 12:45 UTC] No.42736964[source]▶
What does it mean when a whole country has expensive labour? The highly-paid people of said country can afford each others' services. It basically means "low cost of materials" from a human perspective.
6. ◴[17 Jan 25 16:53 UTC] No.42740185{3}[source]▶