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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

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Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#631

Post by dsr_ »

mbesto wrote: post #460
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…

I also point out that Phoenix's "summer" last longer than Berlin's winter: https://weatherspark.com/y/75981/Average-Weather-in-Berlin-G... https://weatherspark.com/y/2460/Average-Weather-in-Phoenix-A...

The figure you are looking for is heating/cooling degree-days.

For each day, use the average high and the average low. Subtract the desired maximum dwelling temperature from the average high: if the result is positive, add it to the cooling degree-days total. Subtract the average low from the from the minimum dwelling temperature: if the result is positive, add it to the heating degree-days total.

Over a year, that gives you comparable figures on how much you will need to cool or heat the space. Many agencies calculate this for specific areas.

Here, for example, are the current season numbers for Boston: https://www.massenergymarketers.org/resources/degree-days/bo...

Generic regional numbers for the US: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/de...

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#632

Post by andsoitis »

Theodores wrote: post #433
andsoitis wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

I forgot that any exaggeration is not allowed on HN! 128 billion dollars is equivalent to 200,000 homes, or even more, which does not represent total obliteration, however, if that level of devastation happened in the UK, the only comparison would be what the Luftwaffe did during WW2.

> 128 billion dollars is equivalent to 200,000 homes, or even more, which does not represent total obliteration,

As of 2023, FL has over 10.4 million homes.

> however, if that level of devastation happened in the UK, the only comparison would be what the Luftwaffe did during WW2.

If you are referring to The Blitz, the numbers I have access to is that over 1.1 million homes and flats were destroyed in London alone.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#633

Post by nujabe »

throwup238 wrote: post #443
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…

The entire west coast sits on top of a fault line. That’s why people don’t build with brick here. There’s plenty of brick buildings on the east coast (and on the west coast like in Oregon, but they have to be seismically retrofitted which is expensive).

It’s not just the West coast, brick buildings are simply not common all throughout the US, in places fault lines don’t exist.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#634

Post by pc86 »

trollbridge wrote: post #501
nojvek wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wildfires can be avoided by not building wood structures in places that historically have had frequent wildfires. A good way to incentivise this is very high insurance costs, which lenders will require before granting a mortgage. Governments can also enact fire codes. Buildings can be built out of less fire prone materials, and surrounding non native vegetation avoided which feeds fires. This does mean someone can’t…

Wildfires can also be avoided by letting forest management people dictate forest management policies instead of environmental activists, and by prioritizing the people that live there over the animals.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#635

Post by wrfrmers »

crawftv wrote: post #596
pclmulqdq wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#636

Post by vantassell »

gibsonf1 wrote: post #610
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.

A key issue in the LA fires was bad management at all levels of government that could have prevented an order of magnitude of the damage (If procedures from the past were followed).

You’re a fire management expert? What did LA do wrong?

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#637

Post by currymj »

alistairSH wrote: post #576
skywhopper wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is “here”? Are you sure you aren’t confusing hurricanes and tornados? Hurricanes rarely destroy houses in the US, either.

How are you making this claim? Every time a hurricane hits Florida, there are photos of entire neighborhoods devastated by wind and storm surge. How many people were permanently displaced by Katrine? Etc. Maybe many of the homes weren't technically "destroyed", but each storm brings millions or billions in damage.

A lot has to do with infrastructure.

In most of South Florida basically anything left standing is pretty well built to withstand hurricanes.

A category 1 storm hitting NYC or North Carolina is an unbelievable disaster. A category 1 storm hitting Broward County is usually disruptive to everyday life but that’s it.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#638

Post by marcosdumay »

gruez wrote: post #547
davemp wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you point out that, for example, health insurance profits are low single digit percentage of overall healthcare costs they just don’t believe it. When you consider that single digit percentages of trillions of dollars is still an obscene amount of money it makes sense. People making tens of billions by applying formulas to spreadsheets and shuffling other people’s money around doesn’t sit right with most peopl…

>People making tens of billions by applying formulas to spreadsheets and shuffling other people’s money around doesn’t sit right with most people. The federal government will pay you $4.4 billion a year[1] if you lend them a trillion dollars, no "shuffling money around" required. [1] current 5-year treasury yields

Those people are not collecting the profits by moving their own money around.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#639

Post by hallway_monitor »

wrfrmers wrote: post #635
crawftv wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

It does seem like it's time to stop letting this "industry" profit off the misfortune of its customers. Making all of these a public service instead of private industry makes sense at this point.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#640

Post by danielmarkbruce »

jopsen wrote: post #538
lionkor wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't build wood houses in an area that gets wild fires

Probably they will, at one point maybe that banks wills stop financing it. But only when you can't get mortgages, people will begin to stop, and even then some will continue. It'll take a long time for these changes to trickle out. Especially, when real estate prices in LA are so high. It might be faster to fix this with zoning. Or if the area is so desirable, find a way to engineer your way out of it.

We don't want fast fixes. Things change, building materials could change, fire fighting methods could improve etc. If we can send the right signal via the right price for the risk, people can react accordingly to either reduce or avoid the problem.
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