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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 3 comments | 17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tobyhinloopen ◴[17 Jan 25 07:13 UTC] No.42734903[source]▶
American, living in area prone to natural disasters: "Is the WHOLE WORLD becoming uninsurable?"

The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.

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infecto ◴[17 Jan 25 13:03 UTC] No.42737082[source]▶
Honest question. Why when people describe wood framed homes do they always phrase it like houses made from "firewood", "sticks", "twigs" etc? It at least for me always detracts from the argument at hand. You could just as easily build a wood framed home with an exterior shell that is fire resistant using modern materials or brick.
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ajsnigrutin ◴[17 Jan 25 13:20 UTC] No.42737226[source]▶
Some of us live in reinforced concrete socialist-built apartment buildings, and our homes don't burn like american houses do. Same for single family houses made from brics and cement (most houses here)

Same for eg. gas explosions, this is one one looks like in us:

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/23081219122...

And this is one over here:

https://www.prlekija-on.net/uploaded/2018_11/eksplozija-plin...

Same for eg floods, pump the basements and ground levels, repaint, move stuff back in. Someone from US I work with on a project had a pipe burst while on vacation, and insurance wrote off their whole house, because of a few days of water.

I mean, sure, you could that, but looking at the photos from fire-affected areas, nobody did that, it's all burnt to the ground.

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1. infecto ◴[17 Jan 25 13:31 UTC] No.42737305[source]▶
I think you missed the point. Its the same as me asking about the drab prisons you live in. Not to mention your cherry picked examples don't really hold up. A 2500sqft home filled with natural gas has a different explosive potential than a small apartment. I am also not sure it makes sense to build homes expecting for a natural gas explosion, not even a measurable risk. You can absolutely build a home that is fire resistant which most modern homes in fire risk areas are.
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2. tossandthrow ◴[17 Jan 25 13:34 UTC] No.42737337[source]▶
A lot of people do, in fact, talk like that about eastern european homes (them selves included).
3. ajsnigrutin ◴[17 Jan 25 20:28 UTC] No.42742917[source]▶
Even single family homes are built from bricks and cement. Even large ones.

It's not just gas explosion, it's 'everything', fire, structural rigidity (only ground floor houses are rare, almost non existant here), and well.. they're built to last.

https://www.metropolitan.si/kronika/tovornjak-trcil-v-hiso-s... <- a truck hit a building, and old one, and you can see the damage... one wall. The girl in the room survived.

I mean... again.. you could build a home that is "fire resistant", and we do, but most americans don't, as we see in LA.