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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.213s | source
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greenthrow ◴[] No.42733349[source]
An hour in and nobody in these comments is addressing climate change? The risks of drought and the resulting fire or hurricanes and floods is much higher than it has been in recorded history in these areas because of climate change. Should people be forced to abandon their homes because the fossil fuel companies lied and misled the public and bought out our governments for the last 50 years?

IMHO we should be seizing the fossil fuel companies' assets and using them for disaster relief around the world due to the catastrophe they have deliberately caused.

The talk about insurance rates is a deliberate distraction.

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ggm ◴[] No.42733417[source]
Don't agree. Well partially. I also think the privatise the profits socialise the losses story is strong, and the coal and oil interests should pony up more remediation costs.

But insurance is one of the best signals we have to true risk/consequence/likelihood, which commercial interests pay attention to

The best long term outcome here would be rebuilding safer but the downside will be "which excludes the poor" -that's where I think state and federal policy should apply the lever: require socialised housing outcomes.

Price controls on insurance forces socialised losses. Better is some middle ground: mandate insurance, demand adequate mitigations and defences. But losing the price signal is bad.

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1. greenthrow ◴[] No.42733511[source]
The losses were already socialized without the controls. Look at how the insurance companies always behave in these situations. They always find a way to stick the public with the bill. Don't listen to the corporate talking points. The price controls may have been stupid but they are a distraction.