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Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

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Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#151

Post by LarryMullins »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #143

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

> "They didn't pay, so they die."

This didn't happen. A building burned but everybody was fine. Had lives been at risk, the firefighters would have intervened. The "moral" you are taking from this story is predicated on gross misinformation.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#152

Post by bee_rider »

turtledragonfly wrote: post #96

I feel like people might read this (or just the headline) and take away a message like "aha, so for-profit fire companies actually worked just fine!" As far as I know, there are still plenty of examples of that model failing hideously in various ways (eg: [1][2], and many examples of unproductive competition from TFA itself). This article is specifically about firefighting in London, in a certain time period — notabl…

It also ends with the fire brigades basically asking the city to take over because they couldn’t solve the free-rider problem, so anyone who thinks of it as an example of the free market system working clearly didn’t read far enough.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#153

Post by masklinn »

modernerd wrote: post #137

“The Guild of Firefighters had been outlawed by the Patrician the previous year after many complaints. The point was that, if you bought a contract from the Guild, your house would be protected against fire. Unfortunately, the general Ankh-Morpork ethos quickly came to the fore and fire fighters would tend to go to prospective clients’ houses in groups, making loud comments like ‘Very inflammable looking place, this’…

This is likely more directly inspired by Marcus Licinius Crassus:

> The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#154

Post by turtledragonfly »

stickfigure wrote: post #106
hristov wrote: post #89

Sorry but I do not believe this. The paper rings a lot of alarm bells. It provides very little evidence for the actual thesis it is trying to prove and provides ample evidence that seem related to the thesis it is trying to prove but in fact it does nothing to prove it. Thus, the paper provides plenty of evidence that insurance companies helped each other to fight fires at sites insured by their fellow insurance comp…

There's a significant percentage of people (even here on HN) that believes "Facebook sold personal information to Cambridge Analytica and they used this information to win the election for Trump". My prior is that people repeat good stories somewhat independently of their truth value. Older stories that are hard to verify are more suspect. I think we should default to skepticism.

I'll bite — so what did happen with Cambridge Analytica?

As far as I can tell[1], the only thing wrong with what you said is "Facebook sold...", where in reality, the data was surreptitiously gathered. Or are you referring to something else?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#155

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

legitster wrote: post #75

This reminds me of when I learned there was no such thing as "The Children's Crusade". As my history professor put it, "going to the Holy Land was an incredibly expensive endeavour reserved for a very few. There's no way anyone was going to waste it on young, inexperienced children". Nearly every source we had saying that the crusade involved children came much later, after a few writers referred to the same source w…

IIRC, the Children’s Crusade never made it to the Holy Land. Instead they ended up a port in Europe where some “friendly” people offered to take them to the Holy Land on their ships for free. Turns out they were slavers and the children were taken to Northern Africa and sold as slaves.

This story sounds actually plausible as it may not be that far from where the children started to a port city.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#156

Post by zdragnar »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #143

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

> "They didn't pay, so they die."

This isn't a thing in the US. Hospitals will stabilize anyone, regardless of ability to pay. First responders- police, ambulance, fire fighters- will save any life they are able to. Preventative health care is a different story, and even that is complicated.

Unincorporated land holds a very tiny percentage of the population of the US; trying to use this as an analogy for the rest of society is just disingenuous.

> Other countries have orginisations that deal with entire areas.

So does the US. Even unincorporated land falls under the jurisdiction of whatever county it happens to be in as well as the state and federal governments; the only difference is it doesn't have a local town government... because there is no local town.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#157

Post by supertrope »

leetrout wrote: post #6

And here we are in modern times where we do, indeed, let buildings burn. > No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn > Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna39516346

https://www.wkms.org/government-politics/2012-03-15/south-fu...

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#158

Post by LorenPechtel »

fatbird wrote: post #112
HWR_14 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The family accepted fire protection from their insurer and claim they forgot to pay the $75 fee, not declined to do so. It's possible they opted out, it's also possible it was an oversight. Certainly, the more human thing would be to make opting in/out more explicit and handle a late payment by sending it to collections (or reminder notifications) instead of just turning service off. Or do you have any evidence they…

A reporter on the scene spoke to the homeowner, who said he didn't pay the fee because he thought he could just pay after, like happened previously. He literally thought he could get away with not paying unless a fire happened. It's a textbook case of moral hazard. I discussed the case a lot at the time it happened, and it never came out that he "forgot" to pay the fee. It was very clear at the time that he thought h…

Exactly. There are two separate cases:

1) Insured by another company. The sensible course of action is to fight the fire and bill them. Every company benefits from such cooperation.

2) Uninsured. The moral hazard problem, if too many people are not paying the only sensible approach is to let uninsured buildings burn.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#159

Post by db48x »

citilife wrote: post #69
gambiting wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmmm. I mean, yes, but doctors will still save your life even if you declined to buy any insurance all life long or pay taxes or whatever. I'm not sure I want the same "protect at all costs" attitude extended to buildings, but fire can definitely spread and even if they don't care about your property they might care about other places.

Then you protect the insured buildings, not really sure why it's an issue? The same logic could apply to police... what if all the crime is coming from an unincorporated part of town? Do you just go and start policing it (kind of like an invading army occupying)? Or do you erect borders / station patrol cars near key locations?

You call the county sheriff. Sheriffs and courts were the original reason why counties exist, and why there aren't any parts of the country that exist outside of a county, while there are quite a lot of people living outside of any incorporated city.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#160

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

cies wrote: post #148
that_guy_iain wrote: post #143

Even with this information included. I think the moral of the story is America has some very serious third-world problems. The reason things like this go on in America and not in any other developed country is that Americans just accept it. "They didn't pay, so they die." Here is how much they accept it, firefighters literally stood and watched a building burn down instead of playing with their toys. Not only that, t…

Quoted post unavailable.

Right, that's why our elections always come down to a 50.001% majority, because if you let the majorities be bigger it's more expensive to turn them into a minority when they turn against you.
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