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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

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Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#521

Post by icehawk »

avianlyric wrote: post #453
leguminous wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the average monthly leccy bill in Phoenix during the summer? $400? The average high temperature in Phoenix in July is 106.5F (41.4C). If you are cooling to 70.0F (21.1C), that's a difference of 36.5F (20.3C). The average January low in Berlin is 28.0F (-2.2C). If you are heating to 65.0F (18.3C), that's a difference of 37.0F (20.5C). I feel like many people living in climates that don't require air condition…

You’re ignoring one critical difference between these two scenarios. Humans, and all human related activities, produce heat as a waste product. It’s much easier, and consumes less additional energy, to heat an occupied space, than to cool it. Thanks to the fact that your average human produces 80W of heat just to stay alive. So every human in your cold space is 80W fewer watts of energy you need to produce to heat th…

> So cooling a living space is always more costly than heating a living space. Simply because all the waste energy created by people living in the space reduces the total heating requirement of the space, but equally increases the cooling requirement of that same space.

This simply is not true for a furnace or electric resistive heat.

My furnace produces 0.9W of heat for every 1W of energy input. More efficient ones do 0.98, the best you get with electric resistive heat is 1W.

On the other hand my air conditioner moves 3.5W of heat outside for every 1W of energy input.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#522

Post by lambertsimnel »

mikhailfranco wrote: post #371

If insurance and property taxes are proportional to property price, and property prices grow faster than incomes, then cost of ownership will eventually become unaffordable to existing residents. A similar argument works if insurance is just based on reconstruction cost, but construction costs inflate faster than incomes. If properties become unaffordable, then to restore equilibrium, property prices must fall, incom…

I don't disagree, but...

> Property taxes could be cut, or decoupled from property values (e.g. poll tax), but that never happens.

Couldn't the total property tax take be set to be proportional to incomes, shared between households in proportion to property price?

> If the risk really is high, there is no practical insurance available, and all purchasers are rational, then the price may go to zero.

Rational purchasers might reason that:

1) they need a home

2) unless they own a home they'll have to rent

3) even an uninsurable home could be expected to be habitable for a while

4) if rent for the duration of expected habitability exceeds transaction costs and property taxes for some uninsurable home, it could be worth a nonzero amount

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#523

Post by flerchin »

hhjinks wrote: post #510
leguminous wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the average monthly leccy bill in Phoenix during the summer? $400? The average high temperature in Phoenix in July is 106.5F (41.4C). If you are cooling to 70.0F (21.1C), that's a difference of 36.5F (20.3C). The average January low in Berlin is 28.0F (-2.2C). If you are heating to 65.0F (18.3C), that's a difference of 37.0F (20.5C). I feel like many people living in climates that don't require air condition…

Recently it was -7C where I lived. Even without heating, my indoor temp didn't go below 15C. In regions where cold temperatures are common, isolation and heat retaining materials are very common. Is preventing heat gain as simple as preventing heat loss?

Yes

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#524

Post by giorgioz »

drysine wrote: post #463
giorgioz wrote: post #461

It seems everyone is on the same "We will find new solutions to a new problem". I totally agree. Here is a list of all new solutions we need: 1) not insure places at higher risk 2) mass desalinification 3) fix US hot climate grids sparkles and/or place them underground 4) Street corridors to isolate fires in neighborhood 5) Build with more fire-resistant materials 6) Install automated hydrant towers with cameras able…

> We'll develop mass production de-salinification plants and have enough water. And then you'll have the brine problem.

Two step forwards one step back. Doesn't mean the step back made the two step forward not good. I was not familiar with the concept of brine. I thought we would extract the salt from the water and store it. Maybe use it for construction material like with the CO2 extracted from the atmosphere. I'm not an expert and I might have the Dunning-Kruger effect on this. It might be a lot harder than I can imagine/know at this moment but it might still be worth it and necessary.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#525

Post by chillfox »

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.

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.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#526

Post by dnh44 »

spicyusername wrote: post #456
epolanski wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dest…

Building out of wood is cheap and perfectly strong for most areas. Engineering is always a set of trade-offs.

Given the choice between earthquake-proof and fire-proof I'd go with earthquake-proof every single time since you can't run from an earthquake.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#527

Post by giorgioz »

nojvek wrote: post #477
giorgioz wrote: post #461

It seems everyone is on the same "We will find new solutions to a new problem". I totally agree. Here is a list of all new solutions we need: 1) not insure places at higher risk 2) mass desalinification 3) fix US hot climate grids sparkles and/or place them underground 4) Street corridors to isolate fires in neighborhood 5) Build with more fire-resistant materials 6) Install automated hydrant towers with cameras able…

You’re mostly talking about wildfires. The top 5 most destructive events in US are all hurricanes. They are the size of multiple states and bring more water in a period of a day than rest of annual non-hurricane rainfall. It’s desalinated water falling from a massive sprinkler in the sky.

You are right. I live in Europe and I'm not very familiar with hurricanes. I'm more familiar with fires and earthquakes. It seems some parts of Florida have been hit by catastrophes every 2-5 years. Maybe we should treat the whole space as natural reserves and building less there. I saw a lot of houses constructured right on the beach in Florida that they seemed just looking for trouble.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#528

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

icehawk wrote: post #521
avianlyric wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re ignoring one critical difference between these two scenarios. Humans, and all human related activities, produce heat as a waste product. It’s much easier, and consumes less additional energy, to heat an occupied space, than to cool it. Thanks to the fact that your average human produces 80W of heat just to stay alive. So every human in your cold space is 80W fewer watts of energy you need to produce to heat th…

> So cooling a living space is always more costly than heating a living space. Simply because all the waste energy created by people living in the space reduces the total heating requirement of the space, but equally increases the cooling requirement of that same space. This simply is not true for a furnace or electric resistive heat. My furnace produces 0.9W of heat for every 1W of energy input. More efficient ones…

My AC works in both directions, in winter it moves more cold outside than the power it consumes. Not sure what the factor is exactly, but I think same as for cooling.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#529

Post by _yb2s »

tzs wrote: post #482
Over2Chars wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume that earthquake insurance in japan is a reasonable model for "world insurance". It looks like it's a reinsurance program: https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/financial_system/earthq... So, I think the answer is "no".

Japan is probably not a good comparison for home insurance because houses in Japan typically only have a 20 to 30 year lifespan. After that they are usually torn down and a new house is built.

Why would anyone tear down a 20 year old house? Where I live the houses are 80-100 years old and they’re better built and nicer to live in than most newer homes.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#530

Post by megaman821 »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #212
altairprime wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that brick is much worse than wood for wind-stoked wildfires; think ‘explosive fiery-hot shrapnel’ rather than just catching on fire like wood. (This is not a contradiction of your point, just a useful related factoid for the modern era.)

Think about what you’ve just written… you’re saying that a stone building is less safe than a wood building in a fire. Have we seen any stone cities burn down lately? Because I haven’t seen London burn down since they replaced all the wooden houses with brick in 1666.

I am not sure the wood framing matters much in this case. The fires are burning houses because the roofs are flammable, or embers are getting in the house through the eaves or a broken window. So in the end you have a completely burned down wood-framed house or a hollow concrete house that is no longer structurally safe.
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