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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
476 points spking | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | 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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1. riskable ◴[] No.42740789[source]
If you built a home out of bricks in New Orleans it will sink. Same (and even worse) for Florida. You can mitigate that somewhat but it's extremely expensive and bad for the environment/water table/aquifer.

For reference, to make a non-sinking, heavy building in Florida you have to drill down into the limestone layer which is usually 100+ feet below the surface. Then you have to create very strong concrete caissons to hold the building up, standing on that limestone layer. It's very similar to if you were to build a structure out into the ocean (LOL).