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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 2 comments | 17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.42s | source
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Animats ◴[17 Jan 25 04:28 UTC] 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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1. giorgioz ◴[17 Jan 25 12:40 UTC] No.42736923[source]▶
> brick isn't earthquake resistant

This is an extreme that is not true. Bricks are harder to make earthquake resistant but it's perfectly possible to build houses that have SOME bricks in it that are also earthquake resistant. There are permutations of materials that are both more fire resistant and more earthquake resistant to the required level at a certain height of the building.

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2. goosejuice ◴[17 Jan 25 13:01 UTC] No.42737071[source]▶
They clearly qualified it with "Not without steel reinforcement."

Anyways the difference in labor costs between wood and reinforced brick would be massive in LA county not to mention the additional cost of materials.