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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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tobyhinloopen ◴[] 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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epolanski ◴[] No.42736730[source]
I'm always baffled at the fact that Americans don't build houses out of bricks.

I read those arguments of the advantages this method has, especially financial ones, but to me it's nonsense considering that it would prevent an endless number of problems that cause the total loss.

I still remember when New Orleans was hit with by Katrina, large parts of the suburbs where houses where made by wood and plastic where destroyed, yet downtown where buildings where made of bricks required maintenance, sometimes little of it, but none faced a total loss.

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throwup238 ◴[] No.42736818[source]
The entire west coast sits on top of a fault line. That’s why people don’t build with brick here. There’s plenty of brick buildings on the east coast (and on the west coast like in Oregon, but they have to be seismically retrofitted which is expensive).
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yulaow ◴[] No.42737558[source]
I never understood this. We build in Europe, over earthquake-risk zones, with bricks and steel and we follow rules to make them earthquake resistant. It is not a problem anymore since like the 1980. We now have also methods to make old and very old brick buildings earthquake resistant without demolishing them
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1. throwup238 ◴[] No.42737709[source]
It works fine for commercial buildings and multi-family structures here too , there’s even a ton of brick buildings in Oregon (which are currently being retrofitted), but not as well for single family homes because of the cost.

There’s a lot of historical context to understand here. The neighborhood that just burned down in the Eaton fire (Altadena), was built up by African Americans and Latinos who were redlined out of Pasadena even after desegregation. Some of them built their houses on land that they bought for under $100 in the 1950s and 60s. They wouldn’t have been able to afford the kind of construction they’d need to be both earthquake and fire resistant. Their choice was between owning an old tinderbox or renting from slumlords.