661–670 of 1001 posts
People reduce or stop caring when they know insurance will cover things. In my opinion this leads to higher losses and higher costs. Especially when people choose more expensive things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hurricanes are mostly just flood damage in the US, and some wind/debris damage exactly like the blown over trees you mention. Houses generally aren't destroyed by hurricanes in the sense of "the storm literally ripped them up", they're made uninhabitable by storm surges (flood). The scary ones are tornados. And tornados do genuinely fuck shit up. Even in those "enlightened" parts of the world you think have proper bu…
Tornados might be more intense but only for a short period of time and in a small area. I don't see any of those where the tornado is lasting days, causing sustained damage. There are some where there are multiple tornadoes in a span, but each individual tornado is itself quick and violent but localized within a mile or so at most. Compare some incidents with, Hurricane Sandy, for example, where it traveled across th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> most of the time, they're optimistic. Evidence? Has anyone collated predictions over time and compared them with outcomes to date? I can remember a number of specific predictions (e.g. that snow would be unknown in most of the UK by the early 2000s) that were pessimistic. Of course, I recall those because they got a lot of media attention at the time and the media reporting is biased to the most extreme predictions…
HN just had a "Whoops we undercounted plant C02 absorption by 40% for the last 40 years" post so I would say the errors mostly go in one direction.
The errors on consequences of the warming... I'm not sure one can even talk about them without citing specific studies, because those things tend to have undefined timeframes and way into the future contexts (like this 4°C one... is this even possible to achieve by burning fossil fuels?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Like we see in California, when the government sets a price ceiling, insurance companies just leave Does not answer the question. With no price caps, no one will be able to buy insurance even if required by law. So that means if you own a house in a risky area, you will be unable to sell it and your values will fall. The price caps are to prevent that. But to me, there should be big incentives to prevent building an…
Why is the burden on insurance companies to make up for individual poor decisions? In some cases it makes sense to socialise the losses, but I'm not convinced this is one of them.
So in reality the burden is falling on Insurance Companies. High rates will in a way prevent building in those areas.
Like we see in California, when the government sets a price ceiling, insurance companies just leave. Same in Florida. If the free market truly was allowed run normally, the insurance rates in Pacific Palisades or on the Florida coast would be so high that no one could afford to live there. Is that a bad thing? If someone was living in a house near where they tested missiles, we'd call them crazy. At what point can we…
>Like we see in California, when the government sets a price ceiling, insurance companies just leave Does not answer the question. With no price caps, no one will be able to buy insurance even if required by law. So that means if you own a house in a risky area, you will be unable to sell it and your values will fall. The price caps are to prevent that. But to me, there should be big incentives to prevent building an…
Burden of proof?
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.
There's two options:
1: Pay people to leave, perhaps 80% of the fair market value as of a certain date.
2: Pay people for their loss, but do not allow them to rebuild. (Unless the house is built to stricter standards, and meeting those standards might not be covered by the loss.)
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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…