Is the world becoming uninsurable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#341

Post by adamcharnock » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:56 AM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #323

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #217

What are we betting that the Americans rebuild in wood again? It seems like they never learn. We had a single city fire like this 500 years ago and since then we haven’t… because we built the city back in brick instead of wood.

Americans used to build cities with brick and masonry. They were repeatedly destroyed by strong earthquakes, as would happen to your city if subject to similarly severe earthquakes. Americans paid for that lesson in blood. European houses are not designed to withstand American disasters. A brick house that can survive a M8.5 earthquake, which is the safety standard where I live, will be almost purely steel structural…

I definitely understand what you are saying here, and it makes sense. But concrete is quite common in Europe these days, which I suspect would also be a good option for earthquake zones.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#342

Post by CalRobert » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:57 AM UTC

hnburnsy wrote: post #265

CalRobert wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth, you can get a house with no insurance or mortgage. They tend to be cheap. I had an uninsured thatched cottage for a while, it was 68k

What did you do for liability insurance?

For the first year I had a policy similar to what farmers use for ag land, then it got cancelled and I was uninsured, which wasn’t ideal.

I sold the house after a while, it was an interesting experiment in cheap living but ultimately it wasn’t great.

Annoyingly I couldn’t insure it because it was thatched, and I couldn’t change the roof because of heritage. The Irish government has screwed over thatch owners brutally.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#343

Post by HacklesRaised » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:57 AM UTC

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #283

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.

To be fair we are talking about an area of the country that is prone to seismic activity, it does limit the building materials.

Perhaps what should be more commonly accepted is that the US is a land of great natural beauty! And large tracts of it should be left to nature.

What's the average monthly leccy bill in Phoenix during the summer? $400?

Where does LA get most of its water? Local sources? I don't think that's the case.

New Orleans is a future Atlantis.

San Francisco is a city built by Monty Python. Don't build it there it'll fall down, but I built it anyway, and it fell down, so I built it again...

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#344

Post by agsnu » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:59 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #327

nejsjsjsbsb wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change enters the chat...

Even pessimistic scenarios don't predict threats to buildings (other than war, which to my knowledge never was insurable) in most areas of the world.

A significant portion of human structures are located close to the coast (seaborne trade having been a huge enabler of economic development for a few hundred years) and are exposed to flooding from rising sea levels, or built in valleys that are increasingly at risk from flooding due to far-above-long-term-historic-norms precipitation runoff (higher atmospheric temps lead to more energy in weather systems; see eg massive floods in Europe in the past few years).

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#345

Post by CalRobert » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:59 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #327

nejsjsjsbsb wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change enters the chat...

Even pessimistic scenarios don't predict threats to buildings (other than war, which to my knowledge never was insurable) in most areas of the world.

Seems like having the ocean at your door would be bad for the structure? Or burning down in a hot dry period…

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#346

Post by swiftcoder » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:04 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #327

nejsjsjsbsb wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change enters the chat...

Even pessimistic scenarios don't predict threats to buildings (other than war, which to my knowledge never was insurable) in most areas of the world.

I don't know about that. The Iberian peninsula is not historically at much risk for natural disasters, and we now suffer alternating forest fires and floods pretty much every year...

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#347

Post by InDubioProRubio » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:05 AM UTC

api_or_ipa wrote: post #11

Every era has it's Malthusian alarmists and without fail, each has been proven wrong by exactly the same thing the author decries and says won't work this time: technological change and adaption. There's no reason to think this time will be any different. Will some places become uninsurable? Sure, plenty of places over time have become uninsurable. Will the whole world became uninsurable? Absolutely not, because we a…

? Have you opened a history book? The whole pre-WW2 situation was a malthusian trap. The colonial empires starved out whole continents on the periphery of their empires. Thats how japan and germany turned to hyper-imperialism in the first place.

And the solution of turning gas into fertilizer requires a free trade system to be reliable.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#348

Post by nejsjsjsbsb » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:05 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #327

nejsjsjsbsb wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change enters the chat...

Even pessimistic scenarios don't predict threats to buildings (other than war, which to my knowledge never was insurable) in most areas of the world.

Except for Fire?

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#349

Post by cft » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:07 AM UTC

The Third world has never been insurable. Insurance, supermarkets with self-checkout, home order delivery, all these things are only possible in high trust developed societies.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#350

Post by swiftcoder » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:08 AM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #337

Theodores wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1666 London had a bit of a problem with fire, after that some building codes were introduced. Buildings made entirely from wood were not allowed and roofs had to have a parapet. If you don't know what a parapet is, take a look up to the roofs on London's older buildings, the front wall rises up past the bottom of the roof. If there is a fire in the building then the parapet keeps the burning roof inside the footpr…

> Florida was obliterated in 2024 That’s an huge exaggeration. FL was not obliterated in 2024. Stats: Total storms 18 Hurricanes 11 Major hurricanes (Cat. 3+) 5 Total fatalities 401 Total damage $128.072 billion (Third-costliest tropical cyclone season on record)

The weird part of living near the tropics is we all look at that and go "not too bad a hurricane season". Everyone not-from-the-tropics stares at your list in horror.