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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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amazingamazing ◴[] No.42733231[source]
my sadly hot (no pun intended) take is that insurance needs to be let free. price controls on insurance are doubly counterproductive - not only does it result in the companies leaving, it results in those who need the insurance losing their stuff when catastrophe inevitably hits.

it’s ok if insurance is expensive - let it result in the insured goods or services having a serious price adjustment.

rather than price controls a slightly better solution would be just to nationalize insurance and force everyone to use it, but even that is not really a solution since highly correlated events are the antithesis of insurance.

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1. TheOtherHobbes ◴[] No.42733447[source]
This is not an insurance problem, or a market problem, or an MBA econ problem.

It's a "Do we want cultural extinction or a relatively comfortable and habitable planet?" problem, which is not quite the same thing.

No amount of faith-based "We will adapt!" is going to make an impression until evidence appears that we are actually adapting in real, tangible ways.

Clearly, objectively, and empirically we are not. We are doing the opposite - pretending to ourselves the problem is going to be solved by continuing with the same mistakes which caused it.

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2. amazingamazing ◴[] No.42733463[source]
i unironically believe the insurance is a great signal for pricing externalities. if you want, imo, a comfortable planet, you should want everyone to have to pay, out of pocket, for the risk they’re taking.

the result would be people not living in areas that a risky, engaging in behaviors or risking, or partaking in things the contribute to the world becoming more volatile.

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3. noirbot ◴[] No.42734095[source]
But isn't the issue that I may have been living in an area for decades and because the government didn't correctly price/deter externalities, now I can't afford to live somewhere? The companies lobbying for the abilities to pollute and otherwise add risk to the world can afford to pay the higher insurance rates. The folks who live in the areas they put at risk often can't.

Insurance costs rising are a good signal, but they're essentially a way to tax normal people for the faults of governments and major companies. It does reflect the real risk, but it's not like the fact of people living in most of these areas is the reason the area is risky.

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4. Sabinus ◴[] No.42734266{3}[source]
>they're essentially a way to tax normal people for the faults of governments and major companies

But it's a great way to deliver the signal that '(Climate) RISK IS INCREASING' directly to the voters. If the government socialises the losses, society won't learn the harsh lessons about our changing world quickly enough.

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5. noirbot ◴[] No.42738087{4}[source]
Maybe, but these subsidies to insurance are the result of voters complaining! The folks they complained to just took the easy way out and instead of annoying powerful entities and forcing them to treat the climate better, they just messed up the insurance market and spread the risk around.

The same people who have the power to fix it always have and they've almost always taken the easy way out. The few times anyone's tried to do real changes on these issues, the other externalities of the changes has usually led to voters rejecting them.