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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

charleshughsmith.substack.com

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Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#81

Post by throw0101a »

macinjosh wrote: post #61
csomar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Because the response of a failure in governance is more government? What you are proposing is "unfair". You are essentially suggesting that the rest of the country subsidize a subset who wants to live near high-risk areas. Me too want to live in a dense forest and also have my house by the edge of the river. You could make the argument for this for healthcare, since no one can choose which illness he is born wi…

People choose to smoke, overeat, engage in risky activities that can cause injury near and long term (Rock climbing, riding motorcycles, football, MMA). Why should society pay for these choices?

> Why should society pay for these choices?

Because it's the only way to get universal coverage, which if you don't have, means a portion of the population gets really sick, jams the ER, can't afford to pay the resulting bill (maybe declaring bankrupcy), and someone then has to eat/cover the cost. Often by hiking prices for those that do have coverage.

Do a search for "ACA three legged stool":

> It starts by requiring that insurers offer the same plans, at the same prices, to everyone, regardless of medical history. This deals with the problem of pre-existing conditions. On its own, however, this would lead to a “death spiral”: healthy people would wait until they got sick to sign up, so those who did sign up would be relatively unhealthy, driving up premiums, which would in turn drive out more healthy people, and so on.

> So insurance regulation has to be accompanied by the individual mandate, a requirement that people sign up for insurance, even if they’re currently healthy. And the insurance must meet minimum standards: Buying a cheap policy that barely covers anything is functionally the same as not buying insurance at all.

> But what if people can’t afford insurance? The third leg of the stool is subsidies that limit the cost for those with lower incomes. For those with the lowest incomes, the subsidy is 100 percent, and takes the form of an expansion of Medicaid.

* https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/opinio...

This 'architecture' was developed by Jonathan Gruber:

* https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Gruber_(economist)

It is a form of social safety net.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#82

Post by defrost »

sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #78
defrost wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steel frame, flame retardant insulation and cladding, rammed earth, .. these are all options. Flammable trees well away from a leaf free clean guttered (or no gutter) house are also no compromise requirements. See: https://research.csiro.au/bushfire/ and https://www.csiro.au/en/work-with-us/services/testing-and-ce... for the rabbit hole of Australian Bushfire housing certification and testing. Burning Down the House:…

> flame retardant insulation Which are almost definitely known to the state of California to cause cancer.

Elsewhere fiberglass and mineral wool insulation aren't regarded as carcinogens.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1947241/

https://mesothelioma.net/fiberglass-connection-to-mesothelio...

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#83

Post by SoftTalker »

greenthrow wrote: post #70
SoftTalker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Los Angeles fires are not really about climate change. There have been wildfires there for centuries, it's part of the ecosystem.

Yes I remember as a kid in the 80s when wildfires woukd devastate LA every year. Oh wait no it did not happen until recently. Yes wildfires do happen in nature. No this is not normal for this area. Yes it is about climate change. Stop believinf fossil fuel company propaganda.

In some parts of California, fires recur with some regularity. In Oakland, for example, fires of various size and ignition occurred in 1923, 1931, 1933, 1937, 1946, 1955, 1960, 1961, 1968, 1970, 1980, 1990, 1991, 1995, 2002, and 2008. Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Los Angeles County are other examples. Orange and San Bernardino counties share a border that runs north to south through the Chino Hills State Park, with the park's landscape ranging from large green coastal sage scrub, grassland, and woodland, to areas of brown sparsely dense vegetation made drier by droughts or hot summers. The valley's grass and barren land can become easily susceptible to dry spells and drought, therefore making it a prime spot for brush fires and conflagrations, many of which have occurred since 1914. Hills and canyons have seen brush or wildfires in 1914, the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and into today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_wildfires

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#84

Post by throw0101a »

defrost wrote: post #32
Dig1t wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a way to build fire resistant buildings to reduce the cost of insuring them, likely this would be the solution in California without price caps. You can build out of concrete and use fire resistant materials like metal or tile for the roof and your house is nearly fireproof. These buildings would be realistically insurable in both California or Florida. They would cost more to build, not THAT much mor…

Steel frame, flame retardant insulation and cladding, rammed earth, .. these are all options. Flammable trees well away from a leaf free clean guttered (or no gutter) house are also no compromise requirements. See: https://research.csiro.au/bushfire/ and https://www.csiro.au/en/work-with-us/services/testing-and-ce... for the rabbit hole of Australian Bushfire housing certification and testing. Burning Down the House:…

> Steel frame, flame retardant insulation and cladding, rammed earth, .. these are all options.

Don't even have to go that far.

Wood framing is fine: make your cladding stucco would do a lot (or brick). You can even have siding as cement-base stuff is available:

* https://www.jameshardie.com/blog/siding-types/what-is-fiber-...

You could have metal or clay roofing, but shingles with a Class A rating is available as well:

* https://www.ameriproroofing.com/blog/asphalt-roofing-shingle...

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#85

Post by throw0101a »

Dig1t wrote: post #23
bluedevil2k wrote: post #8

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…

There should be a way to build fire resistant buildings to reduce the cost of insuring them, likely this would be the solution in California without price caps. You can build out of concrete and use fire resistant materials like metal or tile for the roof and your house is nearly fireproof. These buildings would be realistically insurable in both California or Florida. They would cost more to build, not THAT much mor…

> There should be a way to build fire resistant buildings to reduce the cost of insuring them

There is:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZe-TlYxm9g

But when a lot of your housing stock is multiple decades old that was built before modern building codes, there's a lot of kindling out there.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#86

Post by throw0101a »

michpoch wrote: post #49
Dig1t wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a way to build fire resistant buildings to reduce the cost of insuring them, likely this would be the solution in California without price caps. You can build out of concrete and use fire resistant materials like metal or tile for the roof and your house is nearly fireproof. These buildings would be realistically insurable in both California or Florida. They would cost more to build, not THAT much mor…

> You can build out of concrete and use fire resistant materials like metal or tile for the roof and your house is nearly fireproof Just like exactly the rest of the world? We, the non-USA folks, are looking yearly at either fires or hurricanes destroying these wooden houses there and people keep rebuilding them. Insanity.

> We, the non-USA folks, are looking yearly at either fires or hurricanes destroying these wooden houses there and people keep rebuilding them.

You can build wood framed (2x4, 2x6) buildings that are resistant to fire:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZe-TlYxm9g

A stucco, brick, or fibre cement siding, have 2m/6' clear around the base of your house, tempered windows, and either a metal roof or shingles with a Class A fire rating.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#87

Post by nradov »

wuiheerfoj wrote: post #80
Aurornis wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately these discussions almost never go well, because it seems that most people have at best a surface level understanding of what insurance is and how it works, and everyone is convinced that it's a full scam and insurance companies are fabricating everything I have the exact same experience when discussing anything insurance related: People have wild assumptions about how much profit insurance companies a…

>When you point out that, for example, health insurance profits are low single digit percentage of overall healthcare costs Do you have any source for this? I’m assuming (because HN) that you had the USA in mind, and it doesn’t pass the sniff test for me given that US insurance fees are more than single digit percentages higher than other high quality care countries with privatised healthcare systems

You can literally read the 10-K statement from any of several publicly traded medical insurance companies. Average industry profit margin is about 3%. There are also some non-profit insurers but their fees generally aren't any lower.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#88

Post by achierius »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #33
tptacek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can; it's just expensive.

So is living on the sea bed. It's irrationally expensive and inconvenient, which is why we don't do it. Living in areas in constant danger of flooding and/or burning and/or storm wind damage and/or drought seems like quite an eccentrically inconvenient lifestyle flex. Unless you like disaster movies.

Where are you suggesting we live then? Most all of the US is at "constant" risk for at least one kind of disaster in your list or another.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#89

Post by colechristensen »

achierius wrote: post #88
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is living on the sea bed. It's irrationally expensive and inconvenient, which is why we don't do it. Living in areas in constant danger of flooding and/or burning and/or storm wind damage and/or drought seems like quite an eccentrically inconvenient lifestyle flex. Unless you like disaster movies.

Where are you suggesting we live then? Most all of the US is at "constant" risk for at least one kind of disaster in your list or another.

Far enough inland that the rising sea levels will keep you 50 miles away from the coast for the next century anywhere east of a north-south line that runs through the middle of Kansas. These are places where it rains so you have local water supply and you don’t have a yearly wildfire season and the risk of hurricane destruction is far lower. Also just not in the floodplain of a local river.

This is like half of the country.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#90

Post by purplezooey »

It’s hard to view insurance as a viable business when overpaying executives has become the norm. Take State Farm, for instance: its CEO was awarded $50 million in compensation over just two years — 2022 and 2023. The industry is rife with waste and high barriers to entry.
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