←back to thread

Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 2 comments | 17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.432s | source
Show context
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.

replies(22): >>42735049 #>>42735252 #>>42735436 #>>42736011 #>>42736604 #>>42736730 #>>42737082 #>>42737199 #>>42737348 #>>42737687 #>>42738099 #>>42738455 #>>42738961 #>>42740444 #>>42740756 #>>42741668 #>>42741813 #>>42742051 #>>42742463 #>>42743561 #>>42744077 #>>42744352 #
chillfox ◴[17 Jan 25 14:14 UTC] No.42737687[source]▶
It’s possible that solve the hurricane problems with proper building regulations and lower the risk of huge wildfires with controlled burning. But the US as always prefers to pretend that there’s nothing to be done when other parts of the world has figured it out.

We have cyclones here similar to the hurricanes in the US and usually it just blows over some trees maybe causes a power outage. The absolute worst I have experienced was 3 days without power. I have never seen a house destroyed by a cyclone here.

As for wildfires, they do unfortunately claim a few houses most years.

replies(8): >>42737747 #>>42737851 #>>42737935 #>>42737964 #>>42737978 #>>42740500 #>>42742010 #>>42742657 #
pclmulqdq ◴[17 Jan 25 14:37 UTC] No.42737935[source]▶
As the governments in the US get increasingly incompetent, insurance prices are going to have to rise. Government services are largely there to protect you during black swan events, so if those services get less and less effective, you're going to need more insurance for those events.
replies(3): >>42738273 #>>42738885 #>>42743347 #
crawftv ◴[17 Jan 25 15:07 UTC] No.42738273[source]▶
This was the whole issue. California made it illegal for insurance companies to raise rates, so the insurance companies stop renewals. Leaving everybody uninsured. Homeowners couldn't buy insurance at any price.
replies(2): >>42738660 #>>42738768 #
wrfrmers ◴[17 Jan 25 15:40 UTC] No.42738768[source]▶
Public insurance. For housing, healthcare, maybe even cars (since the coprorate political complex insists that we HAVE to drive everywhere). At some point, we have to accept that the middlemen are siphoning value, not providing any. Vanguard it and let elected admins set the codes.
replies(6): >>42738851 #>>42739337 #>>42740032 #>>42741628 #>>42741642 #>>42741794 #
1. woah ◴[17 Jan 25 18:27 UTC] No.42741628[source]▶
Public insurance would provide no benefit. The issue in California is that people have built their houses in dangerous areas and have not taken any measures to reduce fire risk. The state has already set limits to how much insurance costs can be increased (from a past generation of economic illiterates who wanted to stop "middlemen siphoning value"). Therefore, insurance companies are just pulling out, which disproves the entire idea that they are "siphoning value", since obviously there is no value there to siphon.

The only thing that public insurance would do is to provide a way for the state to incur another massive unfunded liability. Except, unlike healthcare or pensions which have the somewhat laudable goal of taking care of poor people and old people, this would go to bailing out rich homeowners who made a bad investment of a house in a flammable area and then refused to spend money on fire safety measures, either in their home or their municipality.

Of course these fire zone bag holders are now clamoring for the state to take on their bad investments by pushing conspiracy theories about the evil insurance companies.

replies(1): >>42744114 #
2. bombcar ◴[17 Jan 25 22:54 UTC] No.42744114[source]▶
The danger of the areas has not been properly accounted for, and now that we have a better understanding, nobody wants to pay what it actually costs (either in increased insurance, which apparently CA has limited, or building design changes - knock down the flammable one and build something impervious, or even abandoning untenable locations - perhaps after disaster, perhaps before).

Everyone's talking about fire insurance, but the earthquake insurance question is even bigger and basically untenable in a worst-case scenario. So in that case, CA wised up and the state is much more earthquake resilient than it was 30 years ago.