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Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
681–690 of 712 posts
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#682Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. Houses in the US are tinker-toys. They don't gave the structural strength to support a decent roof. Where I live in Europe, roofs are usually ceramic shingles, which should easily last 50-100 years or more. Of course, the down side of higher quality building standards is cost. Building a houses here costs a minimum of half-a-million, and quickly hits a million...
US roofs are commonly built to deal with snow loads of ~50 pounds per square foot. I don't think it's gonna be a big deal to support tile using the same techniques (it would just need to be accounted for).
50 lbs/ft2 is pretty much the upper limit in the continental US. Most of the Midwest is around 20lb. Maine and Alaska go significantly higher. Pretty much the entire South is 10lb or less.
I've lived various places in the US. With the exception of one older house, the roof trusses were a joke: so-called 2x4's (really much thinner than that), widely spaced, held together with a few nails and little or no cross-bracing. They might theoretically hold up to the weights listed, but I sure wouldn't stand under them during a test.
Where I am now, in Europe, the roof trusses are roughly 6"x10" laminated timber. That will hold a snow load.
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#683Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it definitely is. If nobody accounts for it, it means it’s not a risk worth accounting for. But it’s still a risk.
Fellow renter here, what avenues do you have if your renters insurance is cancelled? You don’t have the risk of the main building, but what if your unit suddenly becomes a fire hazard area and you’re dropped? You’re (and I) are an idiot for renting because after you’re done renting you have no equity. Now compare the rental and mortgage similarly sized units and you’ll realize for about 20% more money you’re suddenly…
> You’re (and I) are an idiot for renting because after you’re done renting you have no equity
Not a good argument. This only holds true if your rent equals what your mortgage would be. I personally don’t care about similarly sized units — why would I compare those?
I specifically choose to rent small and inexpensive apartments and put the savings (compared to a mortgage) into other investments. So I do have quite a lot to show for myself after 20 years of renting.
I’ve been paying under $1,200 in rent for 10+ years in a neighborhood where houses are now pushing $800,000.
> Fellow renter here, what avenues do you have if your renters insurance is cancelled
The same as the homeowner does, shop for other options. Fortunately w/ renting it seems like insurance companies (thus far) don’t care that much and use it as an incentive. My partner’s car insurance provider reduced her total bill when she added rental insurance.
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#684Earlier quoted context omitted.
US roofs are commonly built to deal with snow loads of ~50 pounds per square foot. I don't think it's gonna be a big deal to support tile using the same techniques (it would just need to be accounted for).
50 lbs/ft2 is pretty much the upper limit in the continental US. Most of the Midwest is around 20lb. Maine and Alaska go significantly higher. Pretty much the entire South is 10lb or less. I've lived various places in the US. With the exception of one older house, the roof trusses were a joke: so-called 2x4's (really much thinner than that), widely spaced, held together with a few nails and little or no cross-bracing…
I was talking about the techniques being up to the task. What you observed in houses not built to handle higher loads doesn't really inform that question.
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#685Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fellow renter here, what avenues do you have if your renters insurance is cancelled? You don’t have the risk of the main building, but what if your unit suddenly becomes a fire hazard area and you’re dropped? You’re (and I) are an idiot for renting because after you’re done renting you have no equity. Now compare the rental and mortgage similarly sized units and you’ll realize for about 20% more money you’re suddenly…
> You’re (and I) are an idiot for renting because after you’re done renting you have no equity Not a good argument. This only holds true if your rent equals what your mortgage would be. I personally don’t care about similarly sized units — why would I compare those? I specifically choose to rent small and inexpensive apartments and put the savings (compared to a mortgage) into other investments. So I do have quite a…
> I’ve been paying under $1,200 in rent for 10+ years in a neighborhood where houses are now pushing $800,000.
You’re either rent controlled or bullshit. Either way your situation is far from the norm and had you bought a house 10 years ago that’d put us right on the tail end of the crap housing market and you still would’ve ended up better buying.
Since you can’t seem to do math well, 10x12x1200=$144k just gone. If you had bought a house, and I’m correct on the 20% number, then you would’ve spent about $173k and still have the equity. Meanwhile my father-in-law bought a house around that same time for $350k and is sitting on about $1.2mil in equity now.
> The same as the homeowner does, shop for other options. Fortunately w/ renting it seems like insurance companies (thus far) don’t care that much and use it as an incentive. My partner’s car insurance provider reduced her total bill when she added rental insurance.
I don’t even know what you’re saying here. Above you claimed this was the downside of having a house, and now you’re saying you’ll just shop around. That would invalidate your first complaint about risk.
You clearly are too young to know what you’re talking about. I really hope you’re not actually investing with this mentality because if so you’ve just been getting lucky so far.
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought risk pooling was the point?
It is...kind of. But we're talking about severely limiting the ability of insurers to distinguish high risk parties from low risk parties and price accordingly. When the insured parties have limited agency over the risk they present — as with, e.g., health insurance for congenital diseases — this kind of regulation can make sense. But when insured parties can control the risk, such regulation usually makes insurance…
I think it needs to also be acknowledged that insurance itself is a moral hazard. Focusing on the "efficiency" and moral hazards of only the insureds is an incomplete analysis.
Insurance is a for-profit enterprise and as an expert told me, "the goal of insurance companies is to not pay claims". It essentially wants to be passive income at the end of the day.
Modern capitalism runs on insurance but should it? Health insurance is a great example: it shouldn't exist, and is unnecessary in single-payer systems. Car insurance is another example, where you can argue that insurance is locked-in to hide the fact that cars are systematically unsafe. Note how you don't need insurance to ride the subway.
The point is, insurance exists to make rich people richer off of risks that could be addressed socially in other ways. When we see that entire states are losing home insurance because of other systematic problems like climate change we should look at the system itself. Maybe making profit off of people's unavoidable risk isn't a great idea.
EDIT: in response to parent, my point is that focusing on the ills of regulators harming efficiency needs to account for the impossible job regulators have in the first place, which is making an unfair system (insurance) fair.
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#687Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You’re (and I) are an idiot for renting because after you’re done renting you have no equity Not a good argument. This only holds true if your rent equals what your mortgage would be. I personally don’t care about similarly sized units — why would I compare those? I specifically choose to rent small and inexpensive apartments and put the savings (compared to a mortgage) into other investments. So I do have quite a…
> I’ve been paying under $1,200 in rent for 10+ years in a neighborhood where houses are now pushing $800,000. You’re either rent controlled or bullshit. Either way your situation is far from the norm and had you bought a house 10 years ago that’d put us right on the tail end of the crap housing market and you still would’ve ended up better buying. Since you can’t seem to do math well, 10x12x1200=$144k just gone. If…
> You’re either rent controlled or bullshit.
Neither. Shitty apartment and a lot of hunting lol. And it was under $1k until COVID started. Going to be $1300 at my next renewal in July.
> 10x12x1200=$144k just gone
Yes. I'll admit I'm not familiar with the logistics but I assume the government refunds the homeowner's property taxes and reimburses for costs like appliances, repairs, landscaping, etc. when the time comes for them to sell?
> Meanwhile my father-in-law bought a house around that same time for $350k and is sitting on about $1.2mil in equity now.
Good for him! I both can't buy a house in my neighborhood due to the cost and have no interest in owning a single family home.
> You clearly are too young to know what you’re talking about
Like I said, just stupid. I'm over 40.
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#688Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then maybe they should have worked with customers proactively to prune trees and set up fire exclusion zones or fire resistant exteriors instead of sitting on their laurels raking it in.
Seconded. Also let’s require PG&E (the company that set the fires) to actually follow the maintenance and safety schedules they repeatedly promise to follow and repeatedly fail to follow.
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Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#689Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's incorrect to assume that more data points implies more accurate pricing, as we're talking about very limited very simplistic models. It's more plausible to envision those extra data points serving to confuse the market and make it less competitive, rather than actually helping to accurately price risk. Every new data point partitions the statistical population size into two smaller parts, each with their own lar…
I didn't say anything about more data points. I'm talking about insurers being able to properly gauge whether existing customers are adhering to the terms of their policy, or whether they're free-riding off the premiums of their neighbors by defrauding the insurer.
By "more data points" I meant questions like "Do you have a trampoline?". Read my comment again with that understanding.
Elaborating on my second criticism - let's say someone has a trampoline but never has guests at their house. The insurance company asks about the first condition, but doesn't ask about the second condition. If the customer lies about having a trampoline, it's likely that they are actually still being subsidized by their neighbors as their overall risk of liability claims is much lower.
And I've actually got to wonder if lying about having a trampoline is technically even fraud. Are home insurance companies legally obligated to pay/defend liability claims stemming from things you lied about? If not, then it would seem there is no fraud (unless you also lie for the claim) - the claim can just be denied, and liability coverage isn't relied upon by a mortgage.
Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I’ve been paying under $1,200 in rent for 10+ years in a neighborhood where houses are now pushing $800,000. You’re either rent controlled or bullshit. Either way your situation is far from the norm and had you bought a house 10 years ago that’d put us right on the tail end of the crap housing market and you still would’ve ended up better buying. Since you can’t seem to do math well, 10x12x1200=$144k just gone. If…
> You’re either rent controlled or bullshit. Neither. Shitty apartment and a lot of hunting lol. And it was under $1k until COVID started. Going to be $1300 at my next renewal in July. > 10x12x1200=$144k just gone Yes. I'll admit I'm not familiar with the logistics but I assume the government refunds the homeowner's property taxes and reimburses for costs like appliances, repairs, landscaping, etc. when the time come…
>I assume the government refunds the homeowner's property taxes and reimburses for costs like appliances, repairs, landscaping, etc. when the time comes for them to sell?
So you think your landlord is eating those costs and not passing them on to you in your rent? You seriously think they are running a charity?!?