Is the world becoming uninsurable?

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.

In Yugoslavia, in 1969, one of the biggest earthquakes occurred, destroying several cities. After that, the country’s leaders decided to change building codes. Even today, although Yugoslavia no longer exists, the countries that adopted those codes have homes capable of withstanding earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale.

My main point is that if we face major natural disasters, we need to take action to mitigate their impact in the future. As a foreigner, it seems to me that Americans prioritize building cheap homes over constructing better and more resilient ones.

Yeah, I'm surprised that the damages of the LA fire occurred, because it was known beforehand that California had a fire problem (and also have an earthquake problem I think).

I'm here in Eastern Europe and our buildings can withstand a lot of things.

> we need to take action to mitigate their impact in the future. As a foreigner, it seems to me that Americans prioritize building cheap homes over constructing better and more resilient ones.

As an European, it baffles me as well.

If this doesn't happen to "cheap" homes here, why does it happen in California, to rich people's houses?

The fire problem can be managed by burning or removing some of the dead wood, and building adequate water storage. Apparently California has been neglecting those two problems for decades.

It could also be helped by not building houses out of cardboard.

The amount of walls in Europe that you could punch a wall into is low enough that you shouldnt try.

And give many of Europe's house's a small rattle and they would fall down.

I'm in Christchurch, 6.2 Earthquake in 2011 and wooden framed houses dealt with it pretty good - they flex - lots of the houses survived and are still used.

Just about anything old and bricky was a deathtrap (fortunately many were unoccupied because condemned after nearby 2010 Earthquake).

And considering most of Europe is basically low risk territory, it makes sense?

Afaik, only Turkey and a small part of the Balkans is considered earthquake territory. And there's no fracking in Europe to induce minor manmade earthquakes either.