Is the world becoming uninsurable?

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.

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.

Wildfires are not the problem. They happen all the time without causing billion-dollar insurance claims. Insurance is always assets x risk. The issue is expensive flamable housing (assets) in a wildfire area (risk). We ask for trouble when we create million-dollar wooden houses surrounded by manicured gardens in desert enviroments. And build on a slope facing pervailing winds. The answer is concrete/brick houses with metal/ceramic rooves surrounded by sand/stone/concrete. Want a big green lawn? Move to the pacific northwest. Want to live near the beating heart of the movie industry, a town where it never rains? Get used to cactuses instead of rose gardens.

That doesn't align with the reality of these areas. To get insurance in these areas you have to demonstrate that you have created a defensible space around your house. This is enforced by local fire department inspections. I know this because I live near a fire prone area. Despite these things the area still burned. The problem isn't "lawns" or "wooden houses". In the case of the LA fires you would have had the burned out husks of concrete houses that would need to be demolished if everything was made of concrete. This was a black swan event that will require a thoughtful response.

>This was a black swan event that will require a thoughtful response.

Taleb would have a field day with this one. Broadly, I think a big part of the argument is driven by the assumption that the area will be rebuilt, despite being a known fire risk.

Because of the Santa Ana winds (with this apparently being more than usual), you'll continually have very dry conditions with high winds and the danger of a fire getting out of control. I don't see it as a black swan either. This is a repeatable scenario, every few years they'll probably have conditions like this. The climate is changing, maybe this will spread or move to areas nearby.

I live in an area that had a special warning last summer, we had a very very dry summer and there was a period with low humidity and high winds for a few days, it was considered an unusual scenario with extreme fire risk - but nothing happened this time. Now that I'm writing this I'm wondering what I'll do if it feels like an annual occurrence. Another parallel, the power company warned us they might shut off the power to reduce risk but I guess it didn't get that bad.

You need only like 10 meters of concrete to stop any fire. Just build the houses inside.