Is the world becoming uninsurable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#831

Post by _DeadFred_ » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #570

chillfox wrote: post #525

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…

Why is the answer not Japan's approach. My understanding is that because of high incidents of natural disaster they see/build homes as transient and utilitarian rather than as long-lasting investments.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#832

Post by greenavocado » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:17 PM UTC

mikhailfranco wrote: post #371

If insurance and property taxes are proportional to property price, and property prices grow faster than incomes, then cost of ownership will eventually become unaffordable to existing residents. A similar argument works if insurance is just based on reconstruction cost, but construction costs inflate faster than incomes. If properties become unaffordable, then to restore equilibrium, property prices must fall, incom…

Possibly one of the most inane phrases ever uttered about modern governments is Oliver Wendell Holmes’s oft-quoted phrase stating that “taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” This reflected the naïve view, often pushed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, of the so-called “social contract.”

According to this idea, we pay taxes, and in return the state provides order, protection, and all the blessings of civilization.

Presumably included among all those taxpayer-funded civilizational “services” provided by governments one can find “fire suppression.”

But, you wouldn’t know it from watching tens of thousands of residents flee their homes in southern California and Los Angeles County as fires rage. As of Wednesday at midday, five different fires in southern California are still zero-percent contained. Nor is this some hard-to-reach rural area with few roads and little infrastructure. These fires are right in the middle of suburban cities and towns. Yet, it is all apparently too much for lavishly-funded government agencies to handle.

Indeed, government authorities in Los Angeles County and California had neglected infrastructure to the point that it became useless in many areas in terms of battling the blazes.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#833

Post by _DeadFred_ » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:17 PM UTC

HacklesRaised wrote: post #343

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.

To be fair we are talking about an area of the country that is prone to seismic activity, it does limit the building materials. Perhaps what should be more commonly accepted is that the US is a land of great natural beauty! And large tracts of it should be left to nature. What's the average monthly leccy bill in Phoenix during the summer? $400? Where does LA get most of its water? Local sources? I don't think that's…

Japan has seismic activity, tsunamis, typhoons, landslides and flooding. Instead of building bunker houses they see homes as transient and utilitarian rather than as long-lasting investments. Perhaps homes in these high risks areas should be treated similarly.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#834

Post by CatWChainsaw » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:17 PM UTC

greenthrow wrote: post #728

People have lost their homes and everything they own to a natural disaster that was not under their control. I don't care where you live in the world, this could happen to you . The lack of empathy and victim blaming in these comments is absolutely revolting. I am done with this site. It has been taken over by heartless people with zero intellectual curiosity. Good riddance.

It's always been filled with smug self-important techbro shitlibertarians (edit: with egos more fragile than literal snowflakes). Luckily, what's they've sent around is starting to come back and they reeeeally don't like consequences.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#835

Post by kube-system » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:18 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #666

wrfrmers wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a British citizen by birth, I'm amused by the idea that Americans may get National Insurance for houses before they do for healthcare.

We have plenty of national insurance programs, including for both of those... but they're not both free and universal.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)

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

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#836

Post by jurgenaut23 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:22 PM UTC

> That neither is a solution to the actual problem is glossed over, because as a society, we've become accustomed to the idea that there is a political solution to all problems.

THIS. I have started thinking a lot about this recently, and this isn't a lot less obvious that it sounds at first. We tend to think that, if we find _some_ consensus to fix a problem, this will be fixed. But many problems emerge now that no consensus, no matter how global, will not fix.

And even that very idea that we are a reasonable species and we will converge to some consensus-based solution isn't actually true.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#837

Post by scottLobster » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:25 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #515

overflow897 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"cooling a living space is always more costly than heating a living space" Man I wish this was true but it definitely isn't in anyplace that gets significantly cold. Heat pumps are super super efficient at cooling but they get less efficient at heating the colder it gets. Humans and appliances create a pretty negligible amount of heat.

> "cooling a living space is always more costly than heating a living space" Man I wish this was true but it definitely isn't in anyplace that gets significantly cold. Heat pumps are super super efficient at cooling but they get less efficient at heating the colder it gets. Humans and appliances create a pretty negligible amount of heat. I thought any place that is significantly cold can still dig underground and at…

Yeah, if you have a bare minimum of 30k burning a hole in your pocket and enough open land to drill the well with the correct geology, and the larger your house the bigger/more wells you need as you're drawing from the Earth's relatively constant temperature. So the only way to get more heat is to get more surface area for the coolant.

Some people on reddit are reporting quotes of 125k for larger (>3000 sq ft) houses.

As someone who lives in a 4-season environment that can get down into the single digits F on occasion in the winter (forecast to be there for a couple of days next week), and has an air-source heat pump, I just suck it up and eat the $400-$500/month heating costs for the auxiliary (electric resistive) heat in Dec/Jan/Feb. If someone gifts me a ground-sourced heat pump I'll gladly accept, but I've got kids to raise so setting aside money for one is a long way off.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#838

Post by ajsnigrutin » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #494

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us live in reinforced concrete socialist-built apartment buildings, and our homes don't burn like american houses do. Same for single family houses made from brics and cement (most houses here) Same for eg. gas explosions, this is one one looks like in us: https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/23081219122... And this is one over here: https://www.prlekija-on.net/uploaded/2018_11/eksplozija-plin...…

I think you missed the point. Its the same as me asking about the drab prisons you live in. Not to mention your cherry picked examples don't really hold up. A 2500sqft home filled with natural gas has a different explosive potential than a small apartment. I am also not sure it makes sense to build homes expecting for a natural gas explosion, not even a measurable risk. You can absolutely build a home that is fire re…

Even single family homes are built from bricks and cement. Even large ones.

It's not just gas explosion, it's 'everything', fire, structural rigidity (only ground floor houses are rare, almost non existant here), and well.. they're built to last.

https://www.metropolitan.si/kronika/tovornjak-trcil-v-hiso-s... I mean... again.. you could build a home that is "fire resistant", and we do, but most americans don't, as we see in LA.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#839

Post by loandbehold » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:31 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #453

leguminous wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the average monthly leccy bill in Phoenix during the summer? $400? The average high temperature in Phoenix in July is 106.5F (41.4C). If you are cooling to 70.0F (21.1C), that's a difference of 36.5F (20.3C). The average January low in Berlin is 28.0F (-2.2C). If you are heating to 65.0F (18.3C), that's a difference of 37.0F (20.5C). I feel like many people living in climates that don't require air condition…

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…

Cooling takes less energy per BTU moved vs heating. In AC/heat pumps that's represented by SEER rating for cooling and HSPF rating for heating (heat pumps). Modern ACs have SEER ratings for 20+ and HSPF ratings for 8+. What it means is that on average, spending 1 BTU equivalent of electrical energy cools down the house by 20 BTU. Similarly for heat pump it means spending 1 BTU of electricity heats up the house by 8 BTU. Electric resistive heating is equivalent of HSPF 1.

Also in sunny climates it's easy to use solar energy for cooling making it carbon net-zero. Cold places typically burn natural gas for heating, it's much harder to make heating carbon net-zero.

Re: Is the world becoming uninsurable?

#840

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:33 PM UTC

The answer is, of course, no. (Betteridge's law and all that)

Are there going to be massive changes in building codes? Yes. Will that make owning a building more expensive? Yes. Will the pundits tell you it is the fault of the what ever political party is in power? of course they will.

What is true is that 'pre-global warming' designed infrastructure is going to become uninsurable because it will be regularly destroyed. Once a track record is established for 'global warming aware' infrastructure, the cost to insure it will become more clear.

If you were wondering "How will global climate change effect me personally?", this is it. Your city's costs are going up as it has to rebuild itself to a new standard, if you own a home your insurance costs are going up until you tear it down (or it gets destroyed) and rebuild it to the new standard.