Is the world becoming uninsurable?

Japan is probably not a good comparison for home insurance because houses in Japan typically only have a 20 to 30 year lifespan. After that they are usually torn down and a new house is built.

Its a country built on seismically active volcanoes.

If there's earthquake insurance in japan, it should be do-able.

"In and around Japan, one-tenth of earthquakes in the world occur. " https://geoscienceletters.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/...

Why would anyone tear down a 20 year old house? Where I live the houses are 80-100 years old and they’re better built and nicer to live in than most newer homes.

You could Google it and find out.

The traditional materials used in Japanese construction of everyday homes aren't really in the "built to last" category: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1DP5xpM3Y8 . In some cases, trying to make a house that was resistant to floods, fires and earthquakes at the same time would have been prohibitively expensive. I'm sure that led to forming habits that have continued into more modern eras of building styles where it's less required.

They're also smaller, which makes construction costs cheaper which means people are more likely to make dramatic changes when fashion changes. And then there's more of a culture of prefab house building rather than extensions etc. Planning is also a lot more liberal which allows the rebuilt house to be more different and also reduces the cost of the process.

I think even in Europe some of the older houses are houses of theseus though. The exterior shell is the same, but there's plenty of buildings in the local city centre that were tenements, then small business offices, then apartments, with significant remodeling that occurred. Or the house I used to live in was built in the 1880s, extended in the 1950s and significantly modernised in the 2000s. Each time there would have involved largely gutting the interior and rebuilding.

I could but I won’t… do you think I asked that question because I urgently need accurate data on Japanese housing? Why does anyone join forums, or discuss things with friends in real life when they could just Google things?

Retire this meme. Google sucks now.

Basically houses in Japan are treated like cars -- as something that doesn't appreciate in value as in most places but rather depreciate over time. Some of this is maybe cultural from the time when houses in Japan were literally constructed with paper.

https://www.learnedinjapan.com/no-buy-home-japan/

Interesting, thanks! The regulatory explanation makes a lot of sense- I once tried to pull a permit to install a ceiling fan in a small USA town, and it was a nightmare.

That is a fascinating cultural perspective and explains a lot of things to me:

I've always treated cars like houses are in the USA- I buy an older higher end car like a Porsche, keep it in perfect shape, and expect it to appreciate- and it does. Most cars I've owned I ultimately sold for much more than I paid. I've never understood why anyone would waste money on a depreciating car, especially when a fully depreciated high end car is so much nicer and cheaper than a low end new one. Airplanes are not mechanically that different than a car, yet generally last and hold value if maintained.

I've also never understood why people in the USA assume houses will always appreciate, as if it is a law of nature or something- when at its core houses can't appreciate forever relative to inflation, because there is a hard cap somewhere below people paying 100% of income for housing. This basically proves it is just a combination of a culture that values older housing in the USA and regulatory capture preventing new construction. New houses are often seen as "cold," "sterile," or "lacking character" in the USA- and the stereotype of a successful wealthy person is in a giant old mansion.

Home values in Japan are somewhat anomalous. There are some good policies that contribute to this, but also other factors that make me reluctant to generalize from Japan. It’s a country with declining natural population, where houses are assets that rapidly decline in value to the point where they’re nearly worthless not that long after you buy them.

Average home age in Japan is 30 years. I think, maybe once or twice, I’ve lived in a building less than 30 years old in the US. I’ve spent most of my life in buildings built pre-war. There aren’t so many pre-war buildings in Japan, but the US takes the blame for that one :-(

The topic was "is the world becoming uninsurable?" with some climate-panic being implied, oh gosh.

If a country with 1/10th of the worlds seismic activity can have (earthquake) insurance, then well dammit, I think it can be done.

Insurance, afaict, is just gambling, and well darnit you can gamble on anything.

The odds might be terrible, but there's ways of hedging your bets I've heard.

I am not a gambler.

I suspect it might have something to do with the prevalence of earthquakes, the likelihood of said structures being damaged in earthquakes, and building codes (I've heard) that require re-building on a regular basis.

When you build you civilization on active volcanoes having long-lasting buildings may not be a reasonable assumption.

And, yes!, they have insurance. So if you can insure buildings in volcano country, you can insure anything, anywhere, maybe?

now?