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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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Animats ◴[] No.42734092[source]
Not uninsurable, but buildings are going to have to become tougher.

It's happened before. Chicago's reaction to the Great Fire was simple - no more building wooden houses. Chicago went all brick. Still is, mostly.

The trouble is, brick isn't earthquake resistant. Not without steel reinforcement.

I live in a house built of cinder block filled with concrete reinforced with steel. A commercial builder built this as his personal residence in 1950. The walls look like a commercial building. The outside is just painted cinder block. Works fine, survived the 1989 earthquake without damage, low maintenance. It's not what most people want today in the US.

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altairprime ◴[] No.42734140[source]
Note that brick is much worse than wood for wind-stoked wildfires; think ‘explosive fiery-hot shrapnel’ rather than just catching on fire like wood.

(This is not a contradiction of your point, just a useful related factoid for the modern era.)

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1. rapsey ◴[] No.42734470[source]
Wind-stoked wildfires are not cat4 or something tornadoes.