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Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

tomscott.com

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Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#71

Post by red_phone »

leetrout wrote: post #6

And here we are in modern times where we do, indeed, let buildings burn. > No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn > Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna39516346

I grew up in a poor, rural area of the US and can attest that it's true... if you didn't pay the fee (and affix the requisite metal sign below your mailbox) you were on your own in the event of a fire.

At that time and place, fire protection wasn't considered a public service unless you lived in town. I never heard anyone question the arrangement and there was little appetite in that era for the tax increase that would've been required to provide universal protection.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#72

Post by Retric »

michaelt wrote: post #28
nerdponx wrote: post #5

I didn't realize this was even an assertion that people made at all. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. People at the time must have known that fires in cities were extremely dangerous because they could spread over a great area. It's logical that insurers would want to work together to prevent all fires, purely out of self-interest to protect their insured properties, and then sue the pants off negligent and/or u…

> It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Consider the following: * The first Fire Brigade, in Rome, was established by someone who would insist on buying your building before extinguishing the fire [1] * In the present day, you can live in an unincorporated area, decline fire protection offers from the county and from your insurer, and the fire brigade won't come out if you have a fire [2] * The article provides 11 di…

The Rome thing may or may not be true.

It’s quite possible it is true, but we are a long way from any direct evidence that it was generally the case.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#73

Post by woodruffw »

jtlienwis wrote: post #67

Maritime Law had a provision for salvors that saved ships in distress from sinking. If a salvor saved a ship from sinking, they were entitled to a percentage of the worth of a ship. Maybe terrestrial law needs something similar in the case of uninsured building on fire.

We probably have better financial structures in 2022 than that, like insurance (or taxes that fund professional firefighting, like NYC).

Besides: it isn't clear we should incentivize untrained professionals to run into burning buildings. Ships are somewhat unique in that the people who are saving you are also sailors, and are presumably at least minimally qualified to help another ship in distress.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#74

Post by s0rce »

triceratops wrote: post #44
jefftk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the agreement could be backed with the threat of a lien on your property.

The property that just burned down?

Presumably they would save it by extinguishing the fire then if you can't pay the cost of the service they take the property or place a lien on it.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#75

Post by legitster »

This reminds me of when I learned there was no such thing as "The Children's Crusade".

As my history professor put it, "going to the Holy Land was an incredibly expensive endeavour reserved for a very few. There's no way anyone was going to waste it on young, inexperienced children".

Nearly every source we had saying that the crusade involved children came much later, after a few writers referred to the same source with a mistranslation (think reading "me and the boys" as referring to actual children).

But people spent 500 years discussing the horrors of the children's crusade without ever really questioning if it happened.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#76

Post by ghufran_syed »

dantheman wrote: post #26
yardie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story still makes the rounds, and the result is still the same. The family chose to live in unincorporated land. They turned down fire protection when the county offered it to them. They turned down fire protection when their insurer offered it to them. The fire department did what was required to save lives. Insurance can take care of the rest...oh, that's right.

If it wasn't a gov agency, something could have been worked out on the spot. Ask them if they want to pay the full price, what is it $10k, $20k?. If you don't pay, you'd have the lowest priority. But there is no reason other than bureaucracy that they couldn't have handled it.

the guy who can’t pay the insurance fee isn’t usually going to be able to pay the full price of the services

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#78

Post by aaronax »

Arainach wrote: post #59
jefftk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dantheman was proposing agreeing to pay the full cost (tens of thousands of dollars), not just the advance fee ($75).

How do you calculate the "full cost" of having staff on call 24/7, well maintained equipment that's regularly inspected, building inspectors to verify that fire code is being met to keep usage down to sustainable levels, and so on? The full cost isn't $10k in salary and gasoline and foam, it's millions.

Total cost of running the department for a year, divided by the number of callouts. Possibly weight the callout types depending on approximate resources consumed.

Though I am fully in support of just letting the house burn.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#79

Post by bluedino »

We have a ~$200 fee for trash pickup in our municipality. You get the bill every year.

If you don't pay it, a 10% penalty is added. The next step, a lien is placed on the property.

They never stop picking up the trash, though. The next purchaser of your property has to pay the existing trash bill!

This same council raised water rates so they could reduce the penalties for late water bill payments.

Re: Did insurance fire brigades let uninsured buildings burn?

#80

Post by Kkoala »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #37
yamtaddle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hmmmm. I mean, yes, but doctors will still save your life even if you declined to buy any insurance all life long or pay taxes or whatever. ERs in the US are required to provide stabilizing care to patients who come in, even if the patient can't pay, by law. It's a law because otherwise some of them wouldn't.

It's also a Reagan law. So you can say that it was Reagan that introduced universal healthcare to the US.

Imagine thinking that mandatory stabilizing emergency care means "universal healthcare"

I hope that was a joke

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