The Insurance Apocalypse
January 18, 2024 1:58 PM Subscribe
"Should everyone in America pay to subsidize the ability of a segment of our population to live in places that are, objectively speaking, stupid to live in, because they are very likely to be burned up or washed away or underwater in the near future?” Hamilton Nolan, The Insurance Apocalypse Conversation America Won't Have.
the unimproved value of every property should have the insurance cost factored into it.
if not, Moral Hazard City (as it were)
posted by torokunai at 2:14 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
if not, Moral Hazard City (as it were)
posted by torokunai at 2:14 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
Don't get me started on who's paying to have PG&E's power lines fire-proofed in mountain areas, either
posted by torokunai at 2:15 PM on January 18 [15 favorites]
posted by torokunai at 2:15 PM on January 18 [15 favorites]
One way to “manage” this situation would be to allow insurance companies, which are good at evaluating risk, to set their prices as high as the actuarial tables tell them they should be. This would, in short order, become too expensive for anyone but the rich to afford.
Stopped there. If this is US-centric, most of the lower 48 has some major issue. Occasional massive tornado outbreaks in the Southeast and Midwest. Fires on the West Coast. Hurricanes in the Gulf / East Coast. Water shortages in the Southwest probably sooner than later. Etc.
There isn't enough disaster-free real-estate in the continental US to support 320 or however million people we're up to. That's assuming you could build out the infrastructure and housing to support them in any reasonable timeframe. I assume a good chunk of the world has a similar problem.
This is a short road to insurance companies just raising prices across the board, giving everyone the same excuse. I don't buy the "oh we're just trying to save you money because of other peoples' foolishness" line.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 2:16 PM on January 18 [38 favorites]
Stopped there. If this is US-centric, most of the lower 48 has some major issue. Occasional massive tornado outbreaks in the Southeast and Midwest. Fires on the West Coast. Hurricanes in the Gulf / East Coast. Water shortages in the Southwest probably sooner than later. Etc.
There isn't enough disaster-free real-estate in the continental US to support 320 or however million people we're up to. That's assuming you could build out the infrastructure and housing to support them in any reasonable timeframe. I assume a good chunk of the world has a similar problem.
This is a short road to insurance companies just raising prices across the board, giving everyone the same excuse. I don't buy the "oh we're just trying to save you money because of other peoples' foolishness" line.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 2:16 PM on January 18 [38 favorites]
Oh FFS. Do we really want to start an argument about what areas don’t deserve coverage? It’s going to a lot worse than Nolan thinks it will.
posted by Galvanic at 2:17 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
posted by Galvanic at 2:17 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
"Fires on the West Coast" only happen in ritzy areas with lots of pretty trees, with some exceptions for urban/desert interface exclaves in the SoCal area that feature homes $600k+ generally
posted by torokunai at 2:18 PM on January 18
posted by torokunai at 2:18 PM on January 18
"Fires on the West Coast" also includes a bunch of rural poor Oregon, Northern California, and Washington folks that very much don't qualify as "Ritzy".
posted by Philipschall at 2:24 PM on January 18 [74 favorites]
posted by Philipschall at 2:24 PM on January 18 [74 favorites]
A big quake near any sizable city is going to dwarf some of these other disasters.
posted by maxwelton at 2:24 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 2:24 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
Just this week the newspaper on a tiny, highly vulnerable coastal island ran an op-ed on the big jumps in insurance coverage for residents. In clear, simple terms the author laid out exactly why rates were going up, and offered only caution that they would surely continue to increase.
The very first comment on the article was from a local resident who angrily insisted that climate change does not exist, that storms and their damage have not in fact gotten worse, that the rate increases are unjust, before invoking the tired old “sky is falling” sarcasm trope.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:26 PM on January 18 [15 favorites]
The very first comment on the article was from a local resident who angrily insisted that climate change does not exist, that storms and their damage have not in fact gotten worse, that the rate increases are unjust, before invoking the tired old “sky is falling” sarcasm trope.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:26 PM on January 18 [15 favorites]
Do we really want to start an argument about what areas don’t deserve coverage?
There's no need to fight. The answer is always the same. "My place isn't so bad so I should be covered and cheap. Your place, which is full of people I don't like and therefore does not deserve coverage, shouldn't be. And I want to see tears when you lose everything because I enjoy people I don't like suffering."
I think that's generally how it goes.
Meanwhile "we should let insurance companies, who are good at evaluating risk" charge whatever their actuarial tables say they "need" to because that's how capitalism works, right? They're good at this! So we should remove the nominal controls we have on an already predatory industry and let them charge whatever. Which will of course not result in immediately and ruthlessly maximizing this quarter's earnings above meeting their obligations to actual human beings.
Because the right amount is "everything you have that I can take short of doing it at gunpoint." So we should let them do that. Because they're good at this.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 2:31 PM on January 18 [72 favorites]
There's no need to fight. The answer is always the same. "My place isn't so bad so I should be covered and cheap. Your place, which is full of people I don't like and therefore does not deserve coverage, shouldn't be. And I want to see tears when you lose everything because I enjoy people I don't like suffering."
I think that's generally how it goes.
Meanwhile "we should let insurance companies, who are good at evaluating risk" charge whatever their actuarial tables say they "need" to because that's how capitalism works, right? They're good at this! So we should remove the nominal controls we have on an already predatory industry and let them charge whatever. Which will of course not result in immediately and ruthlessly maximizing this quarter's earnings above meeting their obligations to actual human beings.
Because the right amount is "everything you have that I can take short of doing it at gunpoint." So we should let them do that. Because they're good at this.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 2:31 PM on January 18 [72 favorites]
There isn't enough disaster-free real-estate in the continental US to support 320 or however million people we're up to.
That... is not true. The idea that disaster risk is equally distributed across the entire continental US is ludicrous. There are a couple of major issues at the moment: rising sea levels, which impacts low-lying coastal areas, and wildfires, which is mostly impacting the West Coast. It is not a matter of hating people or not liking them.
The fact is that changes to the environment are going to make areas which are currently highly populated mostly unlivable in the not that distant future. And it doesn't make sense to insure a piece of property that is likely to be destroyed in short order, or to incentivize people to live in areas that are prone to that kind of destruction through insurance subsidies.
I live in Philadelphia, in a house which is 89 feet above sea level. We bought a house based in part on its elevation specifically to hedge against sea level rise. And you know what? If, one day, the sea level rises 89 feet, I will not complain about my house being uninsurable.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:46 PM on January 18 [53 favorites]
That... is not true. The idea that disaster risk is equally distributed across the entire continental US is ludicrous. There are a couple of major issues at the moment: rising sea levels, which impacts low-lying coastal areas, and wildfires, which is mostly impacting the West Coast. It is not a matter of hating people or not liking them.
The fact is that changes to the environment are going to make areas which are currently highly populated mostly unlivable in the not that distant future. And it doesn't make sense to insure a piece of property that is likely to be destroyed in short order, or to incentivize people to live in areas that are prone to that kind of destruction through insurance subsidies.
I live in Philadelphia, in a house which is 89 feet above sea level. We bought a house based in part on its elevation specifically to hedge against sea level rise. And you know what? If, one day, the sea level rises 89 feet, I will not complain about my house being uninsurable.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:46 PM on January 18 [53 favorites]
not just everyday dumb!
posted by elkevelvet at 2:47 PM on January 18
posted by elkevelvet at 2:47 PM on January 18
Where I grew up is nearly entirely natural disaster-free -- southern New Mexico. No flooding, no tornados, zero earthquakes that I can recall... But it's full of drought, which is a man-made disaster through climate change, and was precarious on that edge even before fossil fuels started to be burned.
It's peculiar that an article about this only has the word "reinsurance" mentioned 5 times, because honestly it's the reinsurers who get hit with the big disasters.
The insurers get hit with normal everyday degradation of the world through climate change by having a coastline degrade gradually and swallow a house here and here, or other similar things. The reinsurance industry is what the insurers pay to bail them out from a giant disaster -- an insurance company's insurance policy.
Maybe this article is about the inexorable slide toward insurance plans being reduced in high risk areas, but it just felt weird to me that reinsurers were hardly mentioned at all.
posted by hippybear at 2:54 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
It's peculiar that an article about this only has the word "reinsurance" mentioned 5 times, because honestly it's the reinsurers who get hit with the big disasters.
The insurers get hit with normal everyday degradation of the world through climate change by having a coastline degrade gradually and swallow a house here and here, or other similar things. The reinsurance industry is what the insurers pay to bail them out from a giant disaster -- an insurance company's insurance policy.
Maybe this article is about the inexorable slide toward insurance plans being reduced in high risk areas, but it just felt weird to me that reinsurers were hardly mentioned at all.
posted by hippybear at 2:54 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
This is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve read this year.
Hey, whoa there. It’s a US presidential election year. This is the worst thing you’ve read so far.
posted by turbowombat at 2:55 PM on January 18 [78 favorites]
Hey, whoa there. It’s a US presidential election year. This is the worst thing you’ve read so far.
posted by turbowombat at 2:55 PM on January 18 [78 favorites]
The idea that disaster risk is equally distributed across the entire continental US is ludicrous.
I wanted to say something similar. “All areas have risks” is a very different claim from “all risks are equal,” and only the first of those statements passes a sniff test.
posted by eirias at 2:55 PM on January 18 [19 favorites]
I wanted to say something similar. “All areas have risks” is a very different claim from “all risks are equal,” and only the first of those statements passes a sniff test.
posted by eirias at 2:55 PM on January 18 [19 favorites]
and wildfires, which is mostly impacting the West Coast
Your definition of "coast" is really expansive beyond the actual definition.
The area surrounding Spokane WA had two utterly divesting wildfires that burned through rural communities and resulted in such a gigantic amount of loss that the county is still struggling to understand it all.
I would have to drive 300 miles to get to a coast.
So, I'm not sure what your definition of "west coast" is, but nobody here considers themselves to be living anywhere near an ocean.
posted by hippybear at 2:58 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
Your definition of "coast" is really expansive beyond the actual definition.
The area surrounding Spokane WA had two utterly divesting wildfires that burned through rural communities and resulted in such a gigantic amount of loss that the county is still struggling to understand it all.
I would have to drive 300 miles to get to a coast.
So, I'm not sure what your definition of "west coast" is, but nobody here considers themselves to be living anywhere near an ocean.
posted by hippybear at 2:58 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
The state should be allowed to function as the insurer of last resort (and by that I don't mean reinsurance of last resort, but direct to consumer insurance of last resort). Every insurance company wants to run things like the Monty Python "The Bishop" sketch
Can't have that, though. That'd be socialism.
posted by tclark at 3:01 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
Devious: Oh well, reverend Morrison...in your policy...in your policy...(he opens the drawer of the filing cabinet and takes out a shabby old sports jacket; he feels in the pocket and pulls out a crumbled dog-eared piece of paper then puts the coat back and shuts the filing cabinet)...here we are. It states quite clearly that no claim you make will be paid.And even actuarial tables are scales that are not immune to the placement of executives' thumbs. For all of California's many problems, it has somewhat fewer issues with insurance than most other states because of the (relatively) powerful insurance commission.
Vicar: Oh dear.
Devious: You see, you unfortunately plumped for our 'Neverpay' policy, which, you know, if you never claim is very worthwhile...but you had to claim, and, well, there it is.
Can't have that, though. That'd be socialism.
posted by tclark at 3:01 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
We should have discussion of the areas coverable by insurance: as in, not whether they "deserve" it, but whether they can possibly get affordable coverage that will actually pay out when the disaster hits, either from the feds like with flood insurance, or private insurance, which is evaluating larger and larger regions of the country (and sometimes whole states) as uninsurable. We have to talk about it or people are going to die, not just from the disaster itself but also during the failed recovery afterwards. It's not talking about it that led to disasters like Hurricanes Katrina/Harvey/Ian, the Paradise and Lightning Complex fires, and will come up again when the Big One hits CA or Washington. Very easy to put your head in the sand until you can't anymore.
posted by dantheclamman at 3:03 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
posted by dantheclamman at 3:03 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
Earthquakes and wildfires tend to be at most once in a generation events for a region because trees take a long time to grow back, and the plate movement that powers a big earthquake is slow. We might face more wildfires because of more frequent droughts and bad forest management practices; but again it’s kind of a one time event for an area. You can build an affordable insurance model off that.
The thing that is currently impossible to insure against are weather events like floods, hurricanes, and other big storms. We developed the real estate and sold insurance products based on 50 and 100 year storm models. Climate change has destroyed those models. Now we have lots of property in places that were expected to go decades between catastrophic events. It is hard to get people to leave their homes. Then you have real estate investment firms that bought more of this now uninsurable land for future development projects. They don’t want to take the loss so the team up with existing home owners / voters to get the government to subsidize their insurance. It is horrible.
posted by interogative mood at 3:05 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
The thing that is currently impossible to insure against are weather events like floods, hurricanes, and other big storms. We developed the real estate and sold insurance products based on 50 and 100 year storm models. Climate change has destroyed those models. Now we have lots of property in places that were expected to go decades between catastrophic events. It is hard to get people to leave their homes. Then you have real estate investment firms that bought more of this now uninsurable land for future development projects. They don’t want to take the loss so the team up with existing home owners / voters to get the government to subsidize their insurance. It is horrible.
posted by interogative mood at 3:05 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
So, I'm not sure what your definition of "west coast" is, but nobody here considers themselves to be living anywhere near an ocean.
I'm in Philadelphia, which is on the "East Coast" despite being an hour and a half drive from the ocean.
I know all about what happened in Spokane, the company I work with is based there. I'm not sure why you're finding my comment objectionable, TBH. I did say "mostly" because clearly central Canada had a lot of wildfires, as did your home state of New Mexico, though that was due to bad fire management by the feds.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:08 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
I'm in Philadelphia, which is on the "East Coast" despite being an hour and a half drive from the ocean.
I know all about what happened in Spokane, the company I work with is based there. I'm not sure why you're finding my comment objectionable, TBH. I did say "mostly" because clearly central Canada had a lot of wildfires, as did your home state of New Mexico, though that was due to bad fire management by the feds.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:08 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
Lot of questionable assertions made (though reasonably well argued) in this piece, but we can probably all agree on
Because many state governments are run by some of the most craven political cowards you will find anywhere,
I like the cut of this guy’s jib
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 3:11 PM on January 18 [10 favorites]
Because many state governments are run by some of the most craven political cowards you will find anywhere,
I like the cut of this guy’s jib
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 3:11 PM on January 18 [10 favorites]
Literally not aiming any of my comments against you, grumpybear69, just about the discourse in general. Sorry if you got swept up in my disparagement of that, wasn't my intent.
posted by hippybear at 3:13 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 3:13 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
Mod note: one deleted. Never ok to call someone’s comment dumb even if you don’t agree or if it’s incorrect. Let’s rephrase in the future.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 3:13 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 3:13 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
"Fires on the West Coast" only happen in ritzy areas with lots of pretty trees, with some exceptions for urban/desert interface exclaves in the SoCal area that feature homes $600k+ generally
"Fires on the West Coast" seems to be enough of a generalized problem that multiple insurers, including Allstate and State Farm, have chosen to stop issuing new home policies in California at all - Home insurance exodus: Another key insurer leaves California, San Francisco Chronicle, Clare Fonstein, Nov. 6, 2023:
If the insurance companies just stop offering insurance, either the states or federal government will have to step in, or else banks will have to stop requiring insurance when issuing mortgages, which seems unlikely.
Something's going to have to change, and soon, since two of the largest states are losing the option of private homeowners insurance.
posted by kristi at 3:15 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
"Fires on the West Coast" seems to be enough of a generalized problem that multiple insurers, including Allstate and State Farm, have chosen to stop issuing new home policies in California at all - Home insurance exodus: Another key insurer leaves California, San Francisco Chronicle, Clare Fonstein, Nov. 6, 2023:
In July, Farmers Insurance capped the number of policies it would write each month due to “record-breaking inflation, severe weather events, and reconstruction costs continuing to climb,” according to the company.(It's weird that the Hamilton Nolan article mentions insurers pulling out of Florida, but not California, unless I missed it somewhere. There's the "Allstate is threatening to pull out of California" mention but I don't see the exodus of State Farm or other insurers.)
...
Allstate and State Farm have also halted new California policies, citing wildfire damage as a key factor.
If the insurance companies just stop offering insurance, either the states or federal government will have to step in, or else banks will have to stop requiring insurance when issuing mortgages, which seems unlikely.
Something's going to have to change, and soon, since two of the largest states are losing the option of private homeowners insurance.
posted by kristi at 3:15 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
Where I live doesn't really get 'disasters' per se, I mean we get tornadoes but my house is 54 years old and the one down the street is 130 or something. We do get hail, but I've actually paid more in insurance than I've gotten back in claims in the 14 years I've lived here by a factor of 2. I assume your average consumer is very similar - it's relatively small area-wise disasters that are basically random that get insurance companies.
To that extent, the government should really majorly subsidize big disasters to make people whole and allow insurance companies to deal with the 'normal' stuff.
Also, we've seen for the past solid decade that price signals don't necessarily imply that desirable places will build housing, I mean unless you think Houston and Phoenix are far more desirable than places like San Francisco or New York. So jacking up insurance costs first without fixing that will solve exactly nothing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:16 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
To that extent, the government should really majorly subsidize big disasters to make people whole and allow insurance companies to deal with the 'normal' stuff.
Also, we've seen for the past solid decade that price signals don't necessarily imply that desirable places will build housing, I mean unless you think Houston and Phoenix are far more desirable than places like San Francisco or New York. So jacking up insurance costs first without fixing that will solve exactly nothing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:16 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
but I've actually paid more in insurance than I've gotten back in claims in the 14 years I've lived here by a factor of 2.
And this is why insurance is the giant business that it is. Well encapsulated. Multiply you by every other person buying a policy and....
posted by hippybear at 3:20 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]
And this is why insurance is the giant business that it is. Well encapsulated. Multiply you by every other person buying a policy and....
posted by hippybear at 3:20 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]
…then subtract everyone who got huge payouts because their house flooded/burned/fell down/whatever and you’ll see that the insurance business isn’t as great as everyone thinks.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 3:34 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 3:34 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
It's inevitable that the US government (via our taxes) will more and more be the "insurer of last resort." I can live with that, as expensive as it is, for structures already in place.
But what really grinds my gears is the idea that developers will continue to develop new structures in these high-risk areas, meaning that this becomes yet another way I'm subsidizing the rich. Fuck that.
posted by microscone at 3:34 PM on January 18 [20 favorites]
But what really grinds my gears is the idea that developers will continue to develop new structures in these high-risk areas, meaning that this becomes yet another way I'm subsidizing the rich. Fuck that.
posted by microscone at 3:34 PM on January 18 [20 favorites]
"Fires on the West Coast" only happen in ritzy areas with lots of pretty trees, with some exceptions for urban/desert interface exclaves in the SoCal area that feature homes $600k+ generally
This... isn't even remotely true, and I can only assume you have no familiarity with: wildfires, the West Coast, where trees are, and the incomes of people that live around them.
posted by oneirodynia at 3:37 PM on January 18 [18 favorites]
This... isn't even remotely true, and I can only assume you have no familiarity with: wildfires, the West Coast, where trees are, and the incomes of people that live around them.
posted by oneirodynia at 3:37 PM on January 18 [18 favorites]
…then subtract everyone who got huge payouts because their house flooded/burned/fell down/whatever and you’ll see that the insurance business isn’t as great as everyone thinks.
Ii'm trying to find details about this to back up your claim because I want it to be true, but cannot find any reliable numbers at all in my research.
I assume you have numbers to back up your claim, so I hope you will share links here so I can move forward with my understanding about insurance and the current times.
posted by hippybear at 3:40 PM on January 18
Ii'm trying to find details about this to back up your claim because I want it to be true, but cannot find any reliable numbers at all in my research.
I assume you have numbers to back up your claim, so I hope you will share links here so I can move forward with my understanding about insurance and the current times.
posted by hippybear at 3:40 PM on January 18
We do get hail, but I've actually paid more in insurance than I've gotten back in claims in the 14 years I've lived here by a factor of 2.
That's how homeowner's insurance is supposed to work? Almost everyone pays money and gets nothing back, a very few people "win" when their house burns down and they get half a million dollars.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:44 PM on January 18 [19 favorites]
That's how homeowner's insurance is supposed to work? Almost everyone pays money and gets nothing back, a very few people "win" when their house burns down and they get half a million dollars.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 3:44 PM on January 18 [19 favorites]
It's interesting/funny/sad to me that even on Metafilter we're mostly talking about the short term problems and not, you know, addressing the big conversation(s) that the article points out the U.S. needs to have that we're avoiding. Specifically around how climate change will render large populated areas uninhabitable within the near term future and how to navigate the thorny social, economic, and political questions we'll be facing.
For me, it's hard to know how to address that conversation because I mostly feel like, just fuck capitalism, no one should have to pay for housing, insurance companies should just not exist and it's hard to care about how to tweak a system that seems so deeply mired in misery and exploitation. But also we gotta do something and maybe there's both a "hey here's the utopian socialist solution" and "here's how we can take the first steps toward that kind of world solution."
posted by overglow at 3:50 PM on January 18 [29 favorites]
For me, it's hard to know how to address that conversation because I mostly feel like, just fuck capitalism, no one should have to pay for housing, insurance companies should just not exist and it's hard to care about how to tweak a system that seems so deeply mired in misery and exploitation. But also we gotta do something and maybe there's both a "hey here's the utopian socialist solution" and "here's how we can take the first steps toward that kind of world solution."
posted by overglow at 3:50 PM on January 18 [29 favorites]
And finding ways too try to game the insurance system so you get a payout well above what you paid in is the definition of "insurance fraud" and is the subject of way too many television procedurals, not to mention real life cases.
posted by hippybear at 3:51 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 3:51 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
A friend recently had to get new homeowners insurance because their insurer told them they weren't renewing any policies in the area due to wildfire risk.
They live in the desert in Nevada. Plants are typically a foot tall at most around there and scattered out among the rocky soil, there's no grassland out that way, there's basically not a wildfire risk out there. It worked out for them because they actually found a cheaper policy, but finding coverage is starting to become a problem for more than just the coastal homes and mountain retreats.
posted by azpenguin at 3:58 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
They live in the desert in Nevada. Plants are typically a foot tall at most around there and scattered out among the rocky soil, there's no grassland out that way, there's basically not a wildfire risk out there. It worked out for them because they actually found a cheaper policy, but finding coverage is starting to become a problem for more than just the coastal homes and mountain retreats.
posted by azpenguin at 3:58 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
In my Midwest state (which I won’t name, but it’s surrounded by Great Lakes,) the only occasional threat is summer tornadoes, and we’re not part of “tornado alley.”
But oh no; don’t live here because WINTER !
posted by BostonTerrier at 4:01 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
But oh no; don’t live here because WINTER !
posted by BostonTerrier at 4:01 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
The idea that insurance companies might be looking to find the least possible reason to keep from renewing or granting policies isn't even enough of a new issue to make me have a shocked face in response.
posted by hippybear at 4:03 PM on January 18
posted by hippybear at 4:03 PM on January 18
"Everyone in a position to deal with this worsening crisis is looking for a magic solution. There is no magic solution."
I dunno, maybe obliterate the oil companies that buried research on global warming for an entire lifetime, including massive taxes on their retired head executives and the heirs thereof, and use the profits they got off of doing this to start helping the people that live in the affected areas? Nationalize these companies, take over the renewable energy they've been investing in, send any continued profits from those assets along after the seized profits of the past forty-odd years? (Bonus round: do the "affected areas" include all the other parts of the world that live on endangered coastlines?)
There's probably other big companies to do this to, like maybe everyone involved in aggressively selling giant gas-guzzling SUVs to Americans because of a weird tax break they fell into?
posted by egypturnash at 4:05 PM on January 18 [14 favorites]
I dunno, maybe obliterate the oil companies that buried research on global warming for an entire lifetime, including massive taxes on their retired head executives and the heirs thereof, and use the profits they got off of doing this to start helping the people that live in the affected areas? Nationalize these companies, take over the renewable energy they've been investing in, send any continued profits from those assets along after the seized profits of the past forty-odd years? (Bonus round: do the "affected areas" include all the other parts of the world that live on endangered coastlines?)
There's probably other big companies to do this to, like maybe everyone involved in aggressively selling giant gas-guzzling SUVs to Americans because of a weird tax break they fell into?
posted by egypturnash at 4:05 PM on January 18 [14 favorites]
yes Chicago land is full of terrors and certain doom. It's like the end of the world here. If this region had the same terrible density of London, England only 43 million people could fit here.
posted by zenon at 4:07 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
posted by zenon at 4:07 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
One way to “manage” this situation would be to allow insurance companies, which are good at evaluating risk, to set their prices as high as the actuarial tables tell them they should be. This would, in short order, become too expensive for anyone but the rich to afford.
Quotes like this make me have to step aside and remind myself that math ability is not evenly distributed, and that many people who have it pay for it with ASD.
Insurance companies are good at evaluating SOME risk.
They can calculate the risk of a tornado hitting your town.
Or a truck crashing into your front porch.
Or a fire starting from a neglected clothes dryer.
They are not good at evaluating the risk of a hurricane devastating the entire service area of an international airport.
Or the Mississippi flooding like in 1993.
Or a wildfire spreading through a dried out forest.
Which. is why those companies are backing away from insuring those risks at all. And if they can't differentiate the individual risks for a state, they back away from the state altogether, case in point Florida.
These are risks that private insturance cannot, and will not, handle. Deal with it politically or not at all.
posted by ocschwar at 4:15 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
US housing policy is based on the idea that you can get a steady job in your 20s, get a house with a mortgage, pay it off in 30 years, and be free and clear to live out your days at low cost in your beautiful house in your beloved neighborhood or sell and move somewhere even cheaper.
The problem is approximately none of this works without a ton of infrastructure, subsidies, laws, and norms behind it, and at this point it feels like we’re just halfheartedly playing whac-a-mole with the problems that pop up. Like, you can’t have static neighborhoods and low taxes for long time homeowners without limiting someone else’s affordability.
But you also can’t really live the American dream when you’re traumatically seeing everything you own and all your neighbors endangered or hurt by wind, water or fire every few years, and this would be true even if insurance was cheap and always paid out in full, immediately after the disaster. It feels like rising insurance rates and uncovered disaster costs— which by themselves violate the ideal of predictable and affordable costs for homeowners — are ultimately a canary in the coal mine, another sign that we need a real, modern housing model.
posted by smelendez at 4:24 PM on January 18 [16 favorites]
The problem is approximately none of this works without a ton of infrastructure, subsidies, laws, and norms behind it, and at this point it feels like we’re just halfheartedly playing whac-a-mole with the problems that pop up. Like, you can’t have static neighborhoods and low taxes for long time homeowners without limiting someone else’s affordability.
But you also can’t really live the American dream when you’re traumatically seeing everything you own and all your neighbors endangered or hurt by wind, water or fire every few years, and this would be true even if insurance was cheap and always paid out in full, immediately after the disaster. It feels like rising insurance rates and uncovered disaster costs— which by themselves violate the ideal of predictable and affordable costs for homeowners — are ultimately a canary in the coal mine, another sign that we need a real, modern housing model.
posted by smelendez at 4:24 PM on January 18 [16 favorites]
Utah mountains here (Park City). A *lot* of people locally are starting to have problems getting / renewing insurance due to wildfire risk.
A lot of the reasons being quoted are not that the insurer won’t insure in that area, but that that the property rebuild costs would exceed $X where X is greater than $2-$3m typically, and the time to rebuild would be so long that the insurer may suffer excessive cost in temporary housing for the insured if it’s part of the policy.
A small part of me likes to think it may encourage people to build smaller and more efficiently built homes rather than say $25m ski in / ski out homes in the middle of a forest. I won’t hold my breath. Taylor Swift needs her Park City ski chalet.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:24 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
A lot of the reasons being quoted are not that the insurer won’t insure in that area, but that that the property rebuild costs would exceed $X where X is greater than $2-$3m typically, and the time to rebuild would be so long that the insurer may suffer excessive cost in temporary housing for the insured if it’s part of the policy.
A small part of me likes to think it may encourage people to build smaller and more efficiently built homes rather than say $25m ski in / ski out homes in the middle of a forest. I won’t hold my breath. Taylor Swift needs her Park City ski chalet.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:24 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
Good article; thanks for posting it, mittens. So many good pull quotes!
In the real world, there is no magic bullet to escape this math.
I am not even suggesting answers to these questions here. I am just trying to illustrate how far away we are from a genuine public discourse on this topic.
We need leaders brave enough to make millions of people face the fact that they are fucked one way or another, and the only question is how specifically they are going to be fucked, and how soon
To be fair, a socialist Louisiana state insurance market would fail too, although without creating so many rich little crooks along the way.
Of course, what this all comes down to is forced migration. It will happen at some point, and it will be portrayed in the worst possible light by all the usual suspects, unless things are so bad by then that no one is actually listening to politicians yammering. We are talking about this in the context of insurance, but ultimately it’s a “you can’t live there anymore” thing.
Not entirely unrelatedly, hearty recommendation for Gold Fame Citrus, a novel about (more or less) the abandonment of California, and what that might look like. It’s grim, but interesting, especially if you’ve lived or traveled any of the area the book covers.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:35 PM on January 18 [8 favorites]
In the real world, there is no magic bullet to escape this math.
I am not even suggesting answers to these questions here. I am just trying to illustrate how far away we are from a genuine public discourse on this topic.
We need leaders brave enough to make millions of people face the fact that they are fucked one way or another, and the only question is how specifically they are going to be fucked, and how soon
To be fair, a socialist Louisiana state insurance market would fail too, although without creating so many rich little crooks along the way.
Of course, what this all comes down to is forced migration. It will happen at some point, and it will be portrayed in the worst possible light by all the usual suspects, unless things are so bad by then that no one is actually listening to politicians yammering. We are talking about this in the context of insurance, but ultimately it’s a “you can’t live there anymore” thing.
Not entirely unrelatedly, hearty recommendation for Gold Fame Citrus, a novel about (more or less) the abandonment of California, and what that might look like. It’s grim, but interesting, especially if you’ve lived or traveled any of the area the book covers.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:35 PM on January 18 [8 favorites]
One of the tweets I think about from time to time is this one from John Rogers about Phoenix. Pretty much on my mind constantly last year as it was the warmest on record.
If insurance companies want to recoup their losses, well, you have the oil companies' addresses. You know where they do business. I'm a little surprised the clowns that spend their time being afraid of 15-minute cities haven't seized on rates going up as some sort of woke attempt to get them to move. They'll double-down on that for sure.
Also we're really good at denying reality. See also how everyone promoting moving to Miami thinks that their problems are solved. This article is from 2019. Have things gotten better there? I submit that they have not.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 4:47 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
If insurance companies want to recoup their losses, well, you have the oil companies' addresses. You know where they do business. I'm a little surprised the clowns that spend their time being afraid of 15-minute cities haven't seized on rates going up as some sort of woke attempt to get them to move. They'll double-down on that for sure.
Also we're really good at denying reality. See also how everyone promoting moving to Miami thinks that their problems are solved. This article is from 2019. Have things gotten better there? I submit that they have not.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 4:47 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
It's interesting/funny/sad to me that even on Metafilter we're mostly talking about the short term problems and not, you know, addressing the big conversation(s) that the article points out the U.S. needs to have that we're avoiding. Specifically around how climate change will render large populated areas uninhabitable within the near term future and how to navigate the thorny social, economic, and political questions we'll be facing.
I dunno, I think we have those kinds of conversations quite often, and I think up until your comment, many people were taking those conversations as read. Not that we shouldn't talk about it even more in this thread, just that we really do actually talk a fair bit about this stuff.
posted by tclark at 4:51 PM on January 18 [8 favorites]
I dunno, I think we have those kinds of conversations quite often, and I think up until your comment, many people were taking those conversations as read. Not that we shouldn't talk about it even more in this thread, just that we really do actually talk a fair bit about this stuff.
posted by tclark at 4:51 PM on January 18 [8 favorites]
Re-mutualize the insurance industry (and re-charter as public benefit corps at minimum.) That puts control and risk back where it belongs - with the policy-holders.
When an insurer yells SOSHALIZUM, you respond 'MUTUALISM'. Like the police, firefighters, road repair crews, barn-raisings and other time-honored American traditions.
I once witnessed a (mutual) credit union (1 vote/share) volutarily convert into a mutual savings bank (1 vote/account-holder), then into a corporate savings bank (0 vote/acount-holder, 1 vote/IPO shareholder) which merged, merged again and then finally got absorbed into a money-center bank. Which was pointless except for the golden parachutes the CU management likely recieved. This kind of bunk needs to stop.
posted by zaixfeep at 5:10 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
When an insurer yells SOSHALIZUM, you respond 'MUTUALISM'. Like the police, firefighters, road repair crews, barn-raisings and other time-honored American traditions.
I once witnessed a (mutual) credit union (1 vote/share) volutarily convert into a mutual savings bank (1 vote/account-holder), then into a corporate savings bank (0 vote/acount-holder, 1 vote/IPO shareholder) which merged, merged again and then finally got absorbed into a money-center bank. Which was pointless except for the golden parachutes the CU management likely recieved. This kind of bunk needs to stop.
posted by zaixfeep at 5:10 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
I live in Philadelphia, in a house which is 89 feet above sea level...
posted by grumpybear69
May I come over and bungee-jump off your front porch? ;->
posted by zaixfeep at 5:12 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69
May I come over and bungee-jump off your front porch? ;->
posted by zaixfeep at 5:12 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
The idea that disaster risk is equally distributed across the entire continental US is ludicrous.
This is true, but I'm not arguing to the contrary. Some places are more at-risk than others. But there's a lot of risk to go around and once you open the door to declaring one place (like coastal Florida) off-limits but not others you now have the human factors in play that make every other problem we have in the US an ongoing nightmare.
Voters at large will never say "you know you're right, for the good of everyone I will abandon my at-certain-risk home while other people keep their at-less-risk-but-still-risk home even though I think this is unfair." The far more likely outcome is that low tide could be hip deep in their living room and they would still be popping off rounds in the general direction of the oncoming weekly hurricane while screaming incoherently about Biden's 5G Weather Dominator.
And even if they went along with it, where are they going to go? Someone moving from a newly designated no-go area like Miami moves to a not-yet-but-will-be-designated-no-go area in 10 or 20 years and the cycle repeats. If you want to head that off at the pass you need to move people to where the longer-term prognosis is good. And we don't really have a handle on that. What's climate change going to do to, say, tornadoes in the Midwest? Water issues in the Southwest? Etc.
So places that are habitable, can handle the growth and will likely be sustainably livable on a 30+ year timeline... you winnow down the options for the continental US quite a bit.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 5:25 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
This is true, but I'm not arguing to the contrary. Some places are more at-risk than others. But there's a lot of risk to go around and once you open the door to declaring one place (like coastal Florida) off-limits but not others you now have the human factors in play that make every other problem we have in the US an ongoing nightmare.
Voters at large will never say "you know you're right, for the good of everyone I will abandon my at-certain-risk home while other people keep their at-less-risk-but-still-risk home even though I think this is unfair." The far more likely outcome is that low tide could be hip deep in their living room and they would still be popping off rounds in the general direction of the oncoming weekly hurricane while screaming incoherently about Biden's 5G Weather Dominator.
And even if they went along with it, where are they going to go? Someone moving from a newly designated no-go area like Miami moves to a not-yet-but-will-be-designated-no-go area in 10 or 20 years and the cycle repeats. If you want to head that off at the pass you need to move people to where the longer-term prognosis is good. And we don't really have a handle on that. What's climate change going to do to, say, tornadoes in the Midwest? Water issues in the Southwest? Etc.
So places that are habitable, can handle the growth and will likely be sustainably livable on a 30+ year timeline... you winnow down the options for the continental US quite a bit.
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 5:25 PM on January 18 [6 favorites]
Voters at large will never say "you know you're right, for the good of everyone I will abandon my at-certain-risk home while other people keep their at-less-risk-but-still-risk home even though I think this is unfair." The far more likely outcome is that low tide could be hip deep in their living room and they would still be popping off rounds in the general direction of the oncoming weekly hurricane while screaming incoherently about Biden's 5G Weather Dominator.
And why would they? It's the government's job to manage the forest- you can't go out there and chop whatever you want back yourself. It's the government's job to harden the coastline. It's the government's job, that they have abdicated to a fairly small number of NIMBY individuals and local government officials, who failed at managing housing who are causing people to move to these climate zones today. Yeah, oil companies suck, but it is official US government policies that enable the control that oil companies have over all of us. I'm not a Republican, but I'd not say that either. I'd self insure first, and find somebody to rebuild. If people can do it on the coast of 2nd and 3rd world countries they can do it here.
Speaking of that, nearly every other country in the world has coastline and a huge majority of the world population lives adjacent to the ocean. Is this yet another example of the US being a dumb outlier?
posted by The_Vegetables at 5:42 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]
And why would they? It's the government's job to manage the forest- you can't go out there and chop whatever you want back yourself. It's the government's job to harden the coastline. It's the government's job, that they have abdicated to a fairly small number of NIMBY individuals and local government officials, who failed at managing housing who are causing people to move to these climate zones today. Yeah, oil companies suck, but it is official US government policies that enable the control that oil companies have over all of us. I'm not a Republican, but I'd not say that either. I'd self insure first, and find somebody to rebuild. If people can do it on the coast of 2nd and 3rd world countries they can do it here.
Speaking of that, nearly every other country in the world has coastline and a huge majority of the world population lives adjacent to the ocean. Is this yet another example of the US being a dumb outlier?
posted by The_Vegetables at 5:42 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]
I will just mention that since we moved to Missouri, round about 30 years ago, the areas along the Missouri River that regularly flood have been systematically depopulated. Even a lot of the farms have gradually been bought out, as the farmers realize the long-term negative value of the land.
The result of this has been the gradual establishment of one of the largest wildlife refuges in the state. Because the land acquisition has been gradual over the past 30 years, and mostly under the radar, a lot of people don't quite realize what has happened.
Yet here we are - a huge series of wildlife refuges and conservation areas along our major rivers, and many areas that are simply not suitable for habitation or even farming left to revert to their natural state.
The basic idea was, no was forced to leave or forced to sell out. But - after the major floods of 1993 - the federal government was willing to buy any flood-prone land along the lower Missouri River that people wanted to sell.
So far over 21,000 acres as been acquired and made a part of the Refuge. And other state & national agencies that have bought even more of the land along the Missouri River, while similar programs are also in place along the Mississippi.
This is an interesting development, because Native Americans had avoided living in permanent settlements in flood-prone areas for thousands of years. They often had permanent settlements near enough to the river to make use of it but flood-prone areas right on the bank were more the place for a temporary campsite. When the Euro-American settlers poured into the area through the 1800s, they took the opposite approach: The river was super appealing and the closer the better. Snuggle your town right up to the riverboat landing and all that.
So the flood prone areas along the riverbottom went from unpopulated to quite heavily populated. Of course as those 20 and 50 and 100 and 200 year floods hit the wisdom of moving a little bit further back from the river becomes apparent.
Here is a nice example:
So it takes a long time for us to learn our lessons. We're slow learners. But we can do it!
The result of this has been the gradual establishment of one of the largest wildlife refuges in the state. Because the land acquisition has been gradual over the past 30 years, and mostly under the radar, a lot of people don't quite realize what has happened.
Yet here we are - a huge series of wildlife refuges and conservation areas along our major rivers, and many areas that are simply not suitable for habitation or even farming left to revert to their natural state.
The basic idea was, no was forced to leave or forced to sell out. But - after the major floods of 1993 - the federal government was willing to buy any flood-prone land along the lower Missouri River that people wanted to sell.
So far over 21,000 acres as been acquired and made a part of the Refuge. And other state & national agencies that have bought even more of the land along the Missouri River, while similar programs are also in place along the Mississippi.
This is an interesting development, because Native Americans had avoided living in permanent settlements in flood-prone areas for thousands of years. They often had permanent settlements near enough to the river to make use of it but flood-prone areas right on the bank were more the place for a temporary campsite. When the Euro-American settlers poured into the area through the 1800s, they took the opposite approach: The river was super appealing and the closer the better. Snuggle your town right up to the riverboat landing and all that.
So the flood prone areas along the riverbottom went from unpopulated to quite heavily populated. Of course as those 20 and 50 and 100 and 200 year floods hit the wisdom of moving a little bit further back from the river becomes apparent.
Here is a nice example:
- New Frankfort plat map - on the bank of the beautiful Missouri River (1896)
- New Frankfort 1916 - a good 1/3 of the town swimming with the fishes already
- New Frankfort today
So it takes a long time for us to learn our lessons. We're slow learners. But we can do it!
- Story of the Big Muddy National Fish & Wildlife Refuge.
- About the Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge
Maybe I'm just slow but I don't see why a Federal insurance scheme would necessarily translate into everybody subsidizing that area? Can't you just set the rates to a level that offsets the risk? True, disaster might strike more or less frequent than expected, but in the long run you should break even.
posted by ndr at 5:51 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
posted by ndr at 5:51 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
Specifically around how climate change will render large populated areas uninhabitable within the near term future and how to navigate the thorny social, economic, and political questions we'll be facing
Most of this will be Florida. Other parts of the US, too, to be fair, but mostly low-lying Florida marshlands upon which much real estate exists. The thorny issue will be how to manage and contain Florida's Republican migrants, to keep them from swarming into and invading neighboring states. Maybe insurance companies of the future will fund the construction of a wall around the state.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:52 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
Most of this will be Florida. Other parts of the US, too, to be fair, but mostly low-lying Florida marshlands upon which much real estate exists. The thorny issue will be how to manage and contain Florida's Republican migrants, to keep them from swarming into and invading neighboring states. Maybe insurance companies of the future will fund the construction of a wall around the state.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:52 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
Hardening the coastline is a mixed bag and often just doesn't work to address the newest risks:
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:55 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
The economic impacts of coastal hazards will also vary with the degree and type of development and whether it is public or private. Passive erosion, or the gradual loss of beaches from continuing sea-level rise where the back beach has been fixed by a seawall, rock revetment or some other structure, will be a major challenge along highly developed and armored coasts. Along the intensively developed ~325 km (233-mile) coastline of southern California, for example, where millions of people use the beaches, 38 percent of the entire shoreline has now been armored (Figure 4), and with rising sea levels, the issue of passive erosion and beach loss will become more pressing.Edited to remove footnote numbers.
...
Throughout the 20th century, developed coastlines around the world have been responding to the hazards of shoreline flooding and coastal erosion or shoreline retreat in several ways:
- Do nothing (or wait and see);
- Beach nourishment or adding sand to beaches;
- Preventive actions in order to maintain the shoreline (i.e., hold the line) through either soft or hard solutions that may include armoring or hardening the shoreline;
- Managed or unmanaged retreat or realignment;
- Regulatory and restriction options on new development.
... Whether rock revetments, seawalls, levees or floodwalls, or any of a variety of other engineered or non-engineered structures, hardening or armoring the shoreline has been the most common historical approach to coastal erosion, shoreline retreat or flooding. These solutions aim to protect the shore by defending against elevated water levels or wave impacts. There is a long global history of coastal armoring, but in most cases, these structures were not built with their potential impacts to the surrounding environment and shoreline in mind. The potential effects of hardening the shoreline include visual impacts; loss of public beach due to placement of the structure on the beach; loss of the sand previously provided by the eroding cliff, bluff or dune being armored; passive erosion or the gradual loss of the beach fronting the armor with a continuing rise in sea level (Figure 12).
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:55 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
The crisis in Florida derives largely from corrupt leadership encouraging profiteers to siphon lower-risk policies from Citizens, leaving it insolvent. The crisis in California was manufactured by the cartel colluding to strongarm their handpicked commissioner into allowing black-box catastrophe modeling into ratesetting despite Proposition 103 protections.
Insurers have learned since Hurricane Andrew what flaws in homebuilding convert hazard into risk and have increasingly demanded retrofits to renew coverage. Meanwhile insurers were reaping a billion a year from Californians until the serial arsonist mentioned above incinerated enough towns to put insurers into the red and Merced Property & Casualty into insolvency. Only recently have actuaries and reinsurers made serious effort to determine how extrinsic fire risk can be reduced despite increasing hazard.
Yet individual insurers have been slow to offer incentive discounts for such mitigations while the insurer of last resort has led the way. The California FAIR Plan is a pool of all admitted California carriers and not in danger of becoming insolvent like Citizens as Nolan's article would imply.
If property insurance was a marketplace, any underwriter "good at evaluating risk" could capture market share setting premiums set at 150% or 160% of Average Annual Loss. Instead gunshy behemoths, unwilling to face another unprofitable quarter, set premiums above 175% of their calculated AAL, knowing their calculations are dubious, then try to tack on another 50% for the net cost of reinsurance while failing to credit policyholders for demonstrable risk reductions.
Meanwhile the sort of defensible space that allows wildfire to flow around a home does not exist for something like Hurricane Otis. Unprecedented sea surface temperatures will continue to fuel rapid intensification that current models are not trained to anticipate, and landfalls will be increasingly costly. Improved construction like insulated concrete forms may make managed retreat unnecessary. But the notion that the cartel could or would choose to direct rebuilds precisely where expected lifetime utility exceeds expected cost by charging premiums commensurate with risk rather than hazard is just fantasy.
posted by backwoods at 6:00 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
Insurers have learned since Hurricane Andrew what flaws in homebuilding convert hazard into risk and have increasingly demanded retrofits to renew coverage. Meanwhile insurers were reaping a billion a year from Californians until the serial arsonist mentioned above incinerated enough towns to put insurers into the red and Merced Property & Casualty into insolvency. Only recently have actuaries and reinsurers made serious effort to determine how extrinsic fire risk can be reduced despite increasing hazard.
Yet individual insurers have been slow to offer incentive discounts for such mitigations while the insurer of last resort has led the way. The California FAIR Plan is a pool of all admitted California carriers and not in danger of becoming insolvent like Citizens as Nolan's article would imply.
If property insurance was a marketplace, any underwriter "good at evaluating risk" could capture market share setting premiums set at 150% or 160% of Average Annual Loss. Instead gunshy behemoths, unwilling to face another unprofitable quarter, set premiums above 175% of their calculated AAL, knowing their calculations are dubious, then try to tack on another 50% for the net cost of reinsurance while failing to credit policyholders for demonstrable risk reductions.
Meanwhile the sort of defensible space that allows wildfire to flow around a home does not exist for something like Hurricane Otis. Unprecedented sea surface temperatures will continue to fuel rapid intensification that current models are not trained to anticipate, and landfalls will be increasingly costly. Improved construction like insulated concrete forms may make managed retreat unnecessary. But the notion that the cartel could or would choose to direct rebuilds precisely where expected lifetime utility exceeds expected cost by charging premiums commensurate with risk rather than hazard is just fantasy.
posted by backwoods at 6:00 PM on January 18 [7 favorites]
Practitioners/researchers in disaster management and environmental planning are super excited about what flug discusses, soft approaches and "building with nature" that leverage natural ecosystems:
The term “natural infrastructure” recognizes the value that ecosystems, such as coral reefs, mangroves, salt marshes, beach and dune systems and vegetation (emerged or submerged), offer by attenuating waves, reducing the impacts of sea-level rise and retaining sediment or building land. For example, reefs, seagrasses or saltmarshes and beach and dune systems can be effective in protecting against the impact of storms under certain conditions. Such protection can be very valuable. Recent valuations demonstrate that U.S. reefs provide over USD 1.8 billion in flood mitigation benefits every year.posted by spamandkimchi at 6:12 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
As a South Florida homeowner, I want to sell and move somewhere else, but that is not in the cards for a minimum of 10 years, if ever. It sucks and just keeps getting more expensive.
It is only a matter of until disaster strikes close.
This is fine.
posted by cuscutis at 6:53 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
It is only a matter of until disaster strikes close.
This is fine.
posted by cuscutis at 6:53 PM on January 18 [5 favorites]
wildfires tend to be at most once in a generation events for a region because trees take a long time to grow back
About a decade ago I was talking with some New Mexicans about how that had not proved true in their forests; the fast regrowth from one wet year was enough to spread another wildfire. (Both wildfires had just barely missed exciting parts of Los Alamos, to narrow it down a bit more.)
posted by clew at 6:54 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
About a decade ago I was talking with some New Mexicans about how that had not proved true in their forests; the fast regrowth from one wet year was enough to spread another wildfire. (Both wildfires had just barely missed exciting parts of Los Alamos, to narrow it down a bit more.)
posted by clew at 6:54 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
"Fires on the West Coast" seems to be enough of a generalized problem that multiple insurers, including Allstate and State Farm, have chosen to stop issuing new home policies in California at all - Home insurance exodus: Another key insurer leaves CaliforniaThe issue with State Farm stopping new business in CA is simply due to the law that requires big insurance Co's to kick in $$ to support the insurer of last resort:
https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/05/as-insurers-retreat-california-homeowners-may-need-the-fair-plan-so-what-is-it/
The more policies an insurer carries, the more they have to support the FAIR Plan:
"State Farm, as the largest insurer, would have to chip in the most. That’s one reason the company might have decided to not issue new policies anywhere in California rather than just limiting new policies to places with low wildfire risk. “State Farm is saying ‘we want less of that,’” Wara said. "
https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/state-farm-california-insurance/
As for my contentious comment above, I'll admit to a bias of living in the populated lower 2/3 of the state my entire life. I remember looking at the nice houses up in Shaver Lake 20 years ago, just out of my price range at $300k . . .
when Lake Arrowhead goes, and it will someday, I don't think any po' hardscrabble people are going to be affected.
Granted, driving I-5 through Weed California a year after the Mill Fire, it didn't strike me as a particularly luxurious part of the state.
Still, living among fuel is a choice. Like I said, I wish our system could attach the cost of insurance to transaction prices better.
posted by torokunai at 6:57 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
Yeah, look at the 2020 fires in Talent and Phoenix, Oregon. Not hugely "forested" there. But gone in a flash. Drive south from Ashland to Redding or so? and you will hit a scene of a huge fire. And the Camp fire. And all of BC it seems every late summer. But I certainly have several friends, and a relative, who have "second houses" and such. Some VRBO them, one doesn't I think, but. And it's fun when we all, (old man indoor soccer team mates) go to these places. But, our expansion into wilder spaces is fraught with peril. But would love to have that 25 Million dollar ski-in place at Park City. Would be pretty sweet. But I'm not Swift so...
We encroach on the forest, the forest and its inhabitants push back.
I grew up as/with insurance/reinsurance people. My dad always said with my love of stats, I should have been an actuary. Didn't though...
But, unless The Mountain blows up, or I guess a really big quake would fuck things up pretty badly, I think we are relatively OK here in north seattle.
This all has to shake out somehow though doesn't it? You need insurance to borrow all that cash for your house? Vern Fonk now does homeowner insurance! WTH man
posted by Windopaene at 7:13 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
We encroach on the forest, the forest and its inhabitants push back.
I grew up as/with insurance/reinsurance people. My dad always said with my love of stats, I should have been an actuary. Didn't though...
But, unless The Mountain blows up, or I guess a really big quake would fuck things up pretty badly, I think we are relatively OK here in north seattle.
This all has to shake out somehow though doesn't it? You need insurance to borrow all that cash for your house? Vern Fonk now does homeowner insurance! WTH man
posted by Windopaene at 7:13 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
One of the tweets I think about from time to time is this one from John Rogers about Phoenix. Pretty much on my mind constantly last year as it was the warmest on record.
In 2005, I met an elderly couple on the Sierra club trip to Alaska. They were both Phoenix natives, then in their 80s, who had spent a good chunk of their retirement volunteering with organizations that salvaged native plants from the path of suburban sprawl there. The husband told me he saw it as creating a biological reservoir to aid in the city’s rewilding once its water supply collapsed - something he saw as inevitable. “One day the Club will lead hikes in the ruins of Phoenix” was his prediction.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:19 PM on January 18 [18 favorites]
In 2005, I met an elderly couple on the Sierra club trip to Alaska. They were both Phoenix natives, then in their 80s, who had spent a good chunk of their retirement volunteering with organizations that salvaged native plants from the path of suburban sprawl there. The husband told me he saw it as creating a biological reservoir to aid in the city’s rewilding once its water supply collapsed - something he saw as inevitable. “One day the Club will lead hikes in the ruins of Phoenix” was his prediction.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:19 PM on January 18 [18 favorites]
Yeah, can't even figure out which wildfire ripped through the Redding area along I-5 that I have driven through. Seems to have happened about every two years lately. I wouldn't want to insure those places either...
posted by Windopaene at 7:28 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 7:28 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]
I can't remember which travel writer it was, but she was going around Japan and commenting how no-one seemed to be keen to have a beach house. She talked to the inhabitants of one village, who all said that they built their houses higher than the elevation of the "new" temple.
"Why was it the 'new' temple?"
"It was built in the 14th century after the old one was swept away in a tsunami and was built above the top of that flood wave, so everyone knows to build higher than that."
So for a lot of these places - we aren't paying attention to the fact that it is only in the last century or so, anyone thought building a house there was a good idea. I understand that looking out at a forest is more soothing than looking at a carpark - and I much prefer a forest to a carpark. But if you are going to build there - maybe look to Japanese style construction, ie. cheap to build, cheap to replace and allow the insurers to decline to insure anything worth more than $X thousand (NOT million)
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 7:30 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
"Why was it the 'new' temple?"
"It was built in the 14th century after the old one was swept away in a tsunami and was built above the top of that flood wave, so everyone knows to build higher than that."
So for a lot of these places - we aren't paying attention to the fact that it is only in the last century or so, anyone thought building a house there was a good idea. I understand that looking out at a forest is more soothing than looking at a carpark - and I much prefer a forest to a carpark. But if you are going to build there - maybe look to Japanese style construction, ie. cheap to build, cheap to replace and allow the insurers to decline to insure anything worth more than $X thousand (NOT million)
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 7:30 PM on January 18 [9 favorites]
The very first comment on the article was from a local resident who angrily insisted that climate change does not exist, that storms and their damage have not in fact gotten worse, that the rate increases are unjust, before invoking the tired old “sky is falling” sarcasm trope.
I know it's small comfort, and actually a horror in another sense, but a lot of those quick first comments are bots pushing climate denial.
Again, it's hard to know which one is more terrifying, the real people or the astroturfing.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:32 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
I know it's small comfort, and actually a horror in another sense, but a lot of those quick first comments are bots pushing climate denial.
Again, it's hard to know which one is more terrifying, the real people or the astroturfing.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:32 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
Those "lawyer foyers" don't come cheap. Nor do the "an art"s
posted by Windopaene at 7:33 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 7:33 PM on January 18 [3 favorites]
I'm trying to find details about this to back up your claim because I want it to be true, but cannot find any reliable numbers at all in my research.
Yahoo's stats on Allstate put them at around negative 4% profit margin. Their most recent annual report cites a billion dollar loss. But by their own admission most of that is in the auto policy underwriting, where Hyundai and Kia presumably were an underwriting challenge. And I'm sure the low unemployment rate isn't helping -- to the extent that labor is part of what insurance pays for in repairs, that is now higher (green is the 1st quartile of wage earners, per ATLFed).
Things are slightly rosier with their competitor Traveller's but at a reported profit margin of 5% you could just stick the money in treasuries and get that kind of return risk free, and it looks like over the past 5y they underperformed the SP500 by about 20%.
This is not direct underwriting data but at the same time it sure doesn't look like an amazingly profitable industry raking it in on behalf of shareholders.
posted by pwnguin at 7:38 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
Yahoo's stats on Allstate put them at around negative 4% profit margin. Their most recent annual report cites a billion dollar loss. But by their own admission most of that is in the auto policy underwriting, where Hyundai and Kia presumably were an underwriting challenge. And I'm sure the low unemployment rate isn't helping -- to the extent that labor is part of what insurance pays for in repairs, that is now higher (green is the 1st quartile of wage earners, per ATLFed).
Things are slightly rosier with their competitor Traveller's but at a reported profit margin of 5% you could just stick the money in treasuries and get that kind of return risk free, and it looks like over the past 5y they underperformed the SP500 by about 20%.
This is not direct underwriting data but at the same time it sure doesn't look like an amazingly profitable industry raking it in on behalf of shareholders.
posted by pwnguin at 7:38 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
I think part of the problem is in fact the mortgage issue. It’s not just can people move, it’s can people move without losing the years they’ve paid of their mortgage. Not the equity, the *years*.
A few decades ago, states were starting to rein in the banks, and decree that all mortgages must be assumable: that if you bought a house with a mortgage on it, the bank couldn’t force you to get a whole new thirty year mortgage if you could afford the payments on the mortgage as it was and could work something out privately with the seller. The banks screamed bloody murder and got Congress to pass a law saying that banks can do what they want there except in very limited circumstances. But what that means here is that nobody wants to move from 5 years of mortgage left to 30 or 25. And I can’t really blame them.
posted by corb at 7:44 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
A few decades ago, states were starting to rein in the banks, and decree that all mortgages must be assumable: that if you bought a house with a mortgage on it, the bank couldn’t force you to get a whole new thirty year mortgage if you could afford the payments on the mortgage as it was and could work something out privately with the seller. The banks screamed bloody murder and got Congress to pass a law saying that banks can do what they want there except in very limited circumstances. But what that means here is that nobody wants to move from 5 years of mortgage left to 30 or 25. And I can’t really blame them.
posted by corb at 7:44 PM on January 18 [12 favorites]
I dont have time to go through the data myself, but the insurance commissioner in California publishes reports with just this kind of information online!
Here's a link to a bunch of reports
I would think this information is available on the insurance commissioner's websites of most states as it is something that is part of reports that insurers have to provide to the state(s) each year. Insurers have to provide detailed financial reports, which are technically public but in the past you needed to actually go to the office to see them. With the internet, that's changing.
Actuaries themselves are also really looking into climate change. Here's the Casualty Actuary Society (licensing body for P&C actuaries) and their section on climate change.
I would say that if you want to look at the true insurance cost of this stuff, look to the reinsurers. The reinsurers are not bound by state law the same way that a direct-to-consumer one is (because these are sophisticated business-to-business transactions with expert parties on both sides, not a giant corporation vs regular Joe and Jane). The reinsurers have only their competition (this is actually significant) and business reputations to constrain their prices, while the direct insurers have to have their rates approved, pay different taxes, pay into insurance funds, etc. If the insurers are complaining that reinsurance rates are too high, its because their own rates are too low.
(Underlying all this is the requirement for profit that publicly traded companies face and is probably not actually very good for insurance - since insurance needs to take a very long view and the stock market is very decidedly not into the long-view)
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:57 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
Here's a link to a bunch of reports
I would think this information is available on the insurance commissioner's websites of most states as it is something that is part of reports that insurers have to provide to the state(s) each year. Insurers have to provide detailed financial reports, which are technically public but in the past you needed to actually go to the office to see them. With the internet, that's changing.
Actuaries themselves are also really looking into climate change. Here's the Casualty Actuary Society (licensing body for P&C actuaries) and their section on climate change.
I would say that if you want to look at the true insurance cost of this stuff, look to the reinsurers. The reinsurers are not bound by state law the same way that a direct-to-consumer one is (because these are sophisticated business-to-business transactions with expert parties on both sides, not a giant corporation vs regular Joe and Jane). The reinsurers have only their competition (this is actually significant) and business reputations to constrain their prices, while the direct insurers have to have their rates approved, pay different taxes, pay into insurance funds, etc. If the insurers are complaining that reinsurance rates are too high, its because their own rates are too low.
(Underlying all this is the requirement for profit that publicly traded companies face and is probably not actually very good for insurance - since insurance needs to take a very long view and the stock market is very decidedly not into the long-view)
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:57 PM on January 18 [4 favorites]
"It was built in the 14th century after the old one was swept away in a tsunami and was built above the top of that flood wave, so everyone knows to build higher than that."
One of the things that came out after the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami is that several areas that were hardest hit were areas that had old markers from previous tsunamis far inland from the more recent towns along the coast. Over time, people stopped thinking about what had happened in the past, and were instead focused on the undeveloped coastal area and what they could build there.
Ignoring the past in favor of a quick buck, not strictly limited to one culture.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:21 PM on January 18 [10 favorites]
One of the things that came out after the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami is that several areas that were hardest hit were areas that had old markers from previous tsunamis far inland from the more recent towns along the coast. Over time, people stopped thinking about what had happened in the past, and were instead focused on the undeveloped coastal area and what they could build there.
Ignoring the past in favor of a quick buck, not strictly limited to one culture.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:21 PM on January 18 [10 favorites]
rather than say $25m ski in / ski out homes in the middle of a forest. I won’t hold my breath. Taylor Swift needs her Park City ski chalet.
Swift isn't going to base a decision about buying a ski getaway on whether she can get insurance on what amounts to chump change for a billionaire. (I mean, she might be a huge tightwad, but the point stands.) Insurance is for people (like me!) who cannot shrug and walk away from the loss of such a large asset.
Back in 1996 I was able to get a very affordable rider on the insurance of my first house specifically for earthquake coverage (on a brick house, in Seattle). I don't think such riders exist any longer, and certainly not for 1996 $200 per year.
posted by maxwelton at 8:32 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
Swift isn't going to base a decision about buying a ski getaway on whether she can get insurance on what amounts to chump change for a billionaire. (I mean, she might be a huge tightwad, but the point stands.) Insurance is for people (like me!) who cannot shrug and walk away from the loss of such a large asset.
Back in 1996 I was able to get a very affordable rider on the insurance of my first house specifically for earthquake coverage (on a brick house, in Seattle). I don't think such riders exist any longer, and certainly not for 1996 $200 per year.
posted by maxwelton at 8:32 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]
"living among fuel is a choice"
Or a policy decision, as we here in Sonoma and Marin counties add lanes to highways 101 and 37 rather than building housing that might let the lower income workers, that we depend upon for our lifestyles, live in our towns.
posted by straw at 9:43 PM on January 18 [8 favorites]
Or a policy decision, as we here in Sonoma and Marin counties add lanes to highways 101 and 37 rather than building housing that might let the lower income workers, that we depend upon for our lifestyles, live in our towns.
posted by straw at 9:43 PM on January 18 [8 favorites]
Even here in the relatively less risky Midwest (Chicago) climate change is already causing greater losses for homeowners. Not catastrophic, depending on your situation, but significant damages. Because although our annual rainfall totals remain about average, that rain is falling in fewer, larger storm events that overwhelm our combined sanitary/storm sewers. When huge amounts of water fall faster than the throughput of the sewers can handle, or the reservoir is full (or both), it backs up into homeowners' basements. Even the frequently touted TARP reservoir system, still under construction, is a decades-long construction project that is out of date with newer rainfall models before it is even completed. (Plus no matter how big your reservoir is, if your sewers are at max capacity the water can't get to them.)
That's what happened to me and thousands of others in Chicagoland in July of last year. My friends who live just a mile and a half north of us flooded in both September of 22 and July of 23. Their neighbors who have been there for 20 years said they've never had that problem before. Our friends did not claim the second flood on their insurance for fear of being dropped.
You can install a backflow preventer on your sewer line but it is very expensive and insurance neither covers it nor even gives you a discount for having it. (The friends mentioned above shelled out for it; we have not.) And the more people who have backflow preventers, the higher the water will go in the basements of those who don't. Meanwhile, the city sends the affected brochures saying "install rain barrels and plant a rain garden" (at your own cost, natch) but does nothing with all the land that they own and control, nor examines their own zonging and land use and transportation policies, to increase permeable cover and help absorb rainfall at a scale that would actually make an impact on urban flash flooding, and discourage driving cars.
On the insurance front, sewer backup coverage is an add-on to your traditional coverage that you better hope you opted into, and even then it is a relatively small coverage. Our insurer maxes at $10K, and our out of pocket costs were double that despite being lucky to not lose any major mechanicals or appliances. At least we had coverage and could afford proper mitigation by professionals. A lot of our neighbors were cleaning out sewage contaminated belongings themselves and were probably not properly dried out to prevent mold. Eventually there was FEMA assistance if you had the knowledge and resources to apply for it, but it was not very much money.
posted by misskaz at 5:03 AM on January 19 [13 favorites]
That's what happened to me and thousands of others in Chicagoland in July of last year. My friends who live just a mile and a half north of us flooded in both September of 22 and July of 23. Their neighbors who have been there for 20 years said they've never had that problem before. Our friends did not claim the second flood on their insurance for fear of being dropped.
You can install a backflow preventer on your sewer line but it is very expensive and insurance neither covers it nor even gives you a discount for having it. (The friends mentioned above shelled out for it; we have not.) And the more people who have backflow preventers, the higher the water will go in the basements of those who don't. Meanwhile, the city sends the affected brochures saying "install rain barrels and plant a rain garden" (at your own cost, natch) but does nothing with all the land that they own and control, nor examines their own zonging and land use and transportation policies, to increase permeable cover and help absorb rainfall at a scale that would actually make an impact on urban flash flooding, and discourage driving cars.
On the insurance front, sewer backup coverage is an add-on to your traditional coverage that you better hope you opted into, and even then it is a relatively small coverage. Our insurer maxes at $10K, and our out of pocket costs were double that despite being lucky to not lose any major mechanicals or appliances. At least we had coverage and could afford proper mitigation by professionals. A lot of our neighbors were cleaning out sewage contaminated belongings themselves and were probably not properly dried out to prevent mold. Eventually there was FEMA assistance if you had the knowledge and resources to apply for it, but it was not very much money.
posted by misskaz at 5:03 AM on January 19 [13 favorites]
My NYC co-op building paid $39K for insurance in 2014. In 2023 we paid $75K (up from $69K in 2022), and our accountant assures us it will continue to go up.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:11 AM on January 19
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:11 AM on January 19
New from the BBC's "Seriously ..." podcast: Uninsurable Planet
posted by ryanshepard at 6:43 AM on January 19 [3 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 6:43 AM on January 19 [3 favorites]
I live in an area with a lot of growth in housing, and aside from the general destruction of every patch of trees large enough to consider a forest, one thing we're seeing is just extraordinarily bad planning around water flows. Yesterday I was going down a road I hadn't been on a while, and they were putting in a new housing development in an area best described as a bowl. Like, literally, you're on the road, looking down into this basin full of houses under construction, with higher ground on all sides. They have the usual retention pond that all these developments do, but then that's kind of it--there's nowhere else for the water to go. We are getting a lot of rain during the summers, and all I can think, looking down into that bowl, is what's it going to look like at the tail-end of those 30-year mortgages? It's such a minor problem in the greater scheme of things, but that mindset, we'll just build houses where we like, has gotten us into such deep trouble.
posted by mittens at 6:51 AM on January 19 [4 favorites]
posted by mittens at 6:51 AM on January 19 [4 favorites]
We're starting to look at retirement planning and it's a lot more complicated to say "Gee, I'd like to live somewhere I might not die of a heart attack while shoveling my driveway" than it used to be.
These days, you also have to factor in "but not somewhere likely to become unsafe due to escalating extreme weather events" and also "but not somewhere that will be underwater before I die because of rising sea levels" and also "but not somewhere that will be boiling when humanity does fuckall about climate change" but also "and not somewhere where poorly maintained critical infrastructure may crumble and become unusable after natual disasters" as well as "but not somewhere that will be abandoned by the supply chain once environmental factors make it untenable."
And really, it feels damn near pie-in-the-sky to also hope it could be safe from being overrun with fascists. And that's practically abstract given the places where we would have to be on alert in case war expands further into Eastern Europe. And that's assuming the country we land in doesn't something as stupid as Brexit. We'll also need the American economy not to nuke the value of our retirement savings.
All I want to do is be a little old person, with my little old spouse, shuffling around a tiny apartment somewhere pleasant, without dying in a natual disaster, being killed by gunfire, or starving to death unless I consent to work until the day I die.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:40 AM on January 19 [28 favorites]
These days, you also have to factor in "but not somewhere likely to become unsafe due to escalating extreme weather events" and also "but not somewhere that will be underwater before I die because of rising sea levels" and also "but not somewhere that will be boiling when humanity does fuckall about climate change" but also "and not somewhere where poorly maintained critical infrastructure may crumble and become unusable after natual disasters" as well as "but not somewhere that will be abandoned by the supply chain once environmental factors make it untenable."
And really, it feels damn near pie-in-the-sky to also hope it could be safe from being overrun with fascists. And that's practically abstract given the places where we would have to be on alert in case war expands further into Eastern Europe. And that's assuming the country we land in doesn't something as stupid as Brexit. We'll also need the American economy not to nuke the value of our retirement savings.
All I want to do is be a little old person, with my little old spouse, shuffling around a tiny apartment somewhere pleasant, without dying in a natual disaster, being killed by gunfire, or starving to death unless I consent to work until the day I die.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:40 AM on January 19 [28 favorites]
it's a lot more complicated to say "Gee, I'd like to live somewhere I might not die of a heart attack while shoveling my driveway" than it used to be.
Again I am here to comment that no problem is ever one problem, it's always a million problems, each one individually only moderately solvable even with the best intentions and strongest will, neither of which are available.
My granddad died of a heart attack while shoveling snow, actually, and of all of the people whose deaths I've experienced, that one was far and away, by like 50000000 miles, the best one. Grandma came out to the porch, asked if he was doing okay out there. He turned around, shouted "Never better!" and then immediately and thoroughly dropped dead.
'Course it was kind of a shame for him, what with all of the money he had and never got to enjoy. But for me? With my prospects? Heck, that sounds like a goddamn dream.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:00 AM on January 19 [17 favorites]
Again I am here to comment that no problem is ever one problem, it's always a million problems, each one individually only moderately solvable even with the best intentions and strongest will, neither of which are available.
My granddad died of a heart attack while shoveling snow, actually, and of all of the people whose deaths I've experienced, that one was far and away, by like 50000000 miles, the best one. Grandma came out to the porch, asked if he was doing okay out there. He turned around, shouted "Never better!" and then immediately and thoroughly dropped dead.
'Course it was kind of a shame for him, what with all of the money he had and never got to enjoy. But for me? With my prospects? Heck, that sounds like a goddamn dream.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:00 AM on January 19 [17 favorites]
oh misskaz - those pictures are heartbreaking.
posted by zenon at 8:06 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
posted by zenon at 8:06 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
I think part of the problem is in fact the mortgage issue. It’s not just can people move, it’s can people move without losing the years they’ve paid of their mortgage. Not the equity, the *years*.
The median person lives in their house for 7-10 years. Cost of house seems to be a factor, since CA is the longest at 20+ years and that number is starting to increase - it used to be right at 7 across most of the US. So I'm not sure I agree mortgages have any effect on that. The people who have lived in the same home for 50+ years are basically outliers.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:42 AM on January 19
The median person lives in their house for 7-10 years. Cost of house seems to be a factor, since CA is the longest at 20+ years and that number is starting to increase - it used to be right at 7 across most of the US. So I'm not sure I agree mortgages have any effect on that. The people who have lived in the same home for 50+ years are basically outliers.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:42 AM on January 19
DirtyOldTown !! hey, nice to see you :)
posted by supermedusa at 8:55 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 8:55 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
We all deserve to die in a way that suits us, wpofibhc. I'm hoping for winking out like an old lightbulb in a bed in a place near the Adriatic one spring night with the windows open.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:03 AM on January 19 [3 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:03 AM on January 19 [3 favorites]
misskaz - did that water come up from a drain the basement floor?
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:22 AM on January 19
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:22 AM on January 19
Louisiana here. You can't run from climate change .
Don't blame people of color or native Americans for trying to live on their ancestral land, when they didn't t cause the climate change, and have been fighting the oil industry longer than you have.
White people continuous punish people of color with real estate. Please stop.
posted by eustatic at 9:23 AM on January 19 [5 favorites]
Don't blame people of color or native Americans for trying to live on their ancestral land, when they didn't t cause the climate change, and have been fighting the oil industry longer than you have.
White people continuous punish people of color with real estate. Please stop.
posted by eustatic at 9:23 AM on January 19 [5 favorites]
You can't run from climate change
the entire comments section could be reduced to this
I realize some of us are still living in a world where the issues still seem somewhat conceptual but don't worry, if shit is not real enough for you presently it will get very real soon enough
posted by elkevelvet at 9:32 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
the entire comments section could be reduced to this
I realize some of us are still living in a world where the issues still seem somewhat conceptual but don't worry, if shit is not real enough for you presently it will get very real soon enough
posted by elkevelvet at 9:32 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
I am constantly thinking about this tweet from PerthshireMags:
climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it
For me, it was the July 2022 flooding in St. Louis, in which we got the most rain we had gotten on record ever. I was unable to get to work that day because the roads were washed out, and the light rail that could get me there was also flooded out, the effects of which we're still feeling a year and a half out.
That flood woke me up to the fact that this is the future, not a blip.
posted by gc at 9:54 AM on January 19 [11 favorites]
climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it
For me, it was the July 2022 flooding in St. Louis, in which we got the most rain we had gotten on record ever. I was unable to get to work that day because the roads were washed out, and the light rail that could get me there was also flooded out, the effects of which we're still feeling a year and a half out.
That flood woke me up to the fact that this is the future, not a blip.
posted by gc at 9:54 AM on January 19 [11 favorites]
its not even the future, its the present
posted by supermedusa at 9:58 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 9:58 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
grumpybear69 - Yep, we have two floor drains and watched helplessly as contaminated water (yay combined sanitary/storm sewers!) surged up with no way to stop it. Our friends don't have floor drains but it just came up from their basement shower drain instead. We're lucky we have tile floors (except one carpeted room, ugh) so it was all just drywall and baseboards/trim that needed replacing.
posted by misskaz at 10:02 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
posted by misskaz at 10:02 AM on January 19 [1 favorite]
climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it
Ten people have died in the past few years from flash flooding within 6 miles of my house in central New Jersey. People whose houses have never flooded before flooded during those storms. And don't get me started on the tornadoes.
posted by mollweide at 10:09 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
Ten people have died in the past few years from flash flooding within 6 miles of my house in central New Jersey. People whose houses have never flooded before flooded during those storms. And don't get me started on the tornadoes.
posted by mollweide at 10:09 AM on January 19 [2 favorites]
I generally feel pretty smug that I don’t live in a high risk area wrt floods, fires or earthquakes but I did have a giant oak fall onto my beautiful 1920’s bungalow in Cleveland Heights and go a huge claim to rebuild it.
posted by waving at 12:06 PM on January 19
posted by waving at 12:06 PM on January 19
We all deserve to die in a way that suits us, wpofibhc. I'm hoping for winking out like an old lightbulb in a bed in a place near the Adriatic one spring night with the windows open.
Hey man if you still have the ability to hope and dream about futures GOOD ON YA. I'm just saying, as someone who couldn't escape my current city of residence even if I wanted to, for whom retirement was literally never even at any point in my life a possibility -- sometimes I'm glad that where I got trapped might take me out quick and easy instead of slow and boiling.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:34 PM on January 19
Hey man if you still have the ability to hope and dream about futures GOOD ON YA. I'm just saying, as someone who couldn't escape my current city of residence even if I wanted to, for whom retirement was literally never even at any point in my life a possibility -- sometimes I'm glad that where I got trapped might take me out quick and easy instead of slow and boiling.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:34 PM on January 19
I realize some of us are still living in a world where the issues still seem somewhat conceptual but don't worry, if shit is not real enough for you presently it will get very real soon enough
I think one of the things I have been struggling with, mentally, which has affected me on a very deep level, is just how wrong I had been, due in part to not being pessimistic enough. What we see around us is stuff that I had always assumed was going to happen, but I'd honestly thought that it wasn't really going to reach this level for another twenty years or so. I feel like I'm walking through the world in a constant state of low-level shock.
By chance, the home we have is situated 27 meters above sea level, which is great, but we're also on a hillside, which is less great in a country with lots of earthquakes and heavy rain. In the 24 years I've been here, it seems like Typhoons have gradually changed course, from largely, and most often, hitting southern and western Japan, to more directly approaching the Tokyo area, specifically Chiba, where I live. Temperatures are rising, as they are everywhere. In the summer, my school sends out daily mails for clubs and sports teams that talk about what the daily wet bulb temperature is going to be. It's no longer a question of if, but when Tokyo will regularly experience 40C days.
Absurdly, though, it seems (knocking on wood) like we might have actually found a place that might be a safer, better place to live, but all of that is predicated on the idea that things will continue in any way as they have so far, which is to say, probably incredibly wrong, and I'm living in a kind of eternal dread about just how wrong even this will have been.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:00 PM on January 19 [4 favorites]
I think one of the things I have been struggling with, mentally, which has affected me on a very deep level, is just how wrong I had been, due in part to not being pessimistic enough. What we see around us is stuff that I had always assumed was going to happen, but I'd honestly thought that it wasn't really going to reach this level for another twenty years or so. I feel like I'm walking through the world in a constant state of low-level shock.
By chance, the home we have is situated 27 meters above sea level, which is great, but we're also on a hillside, which is less great in a country with lots of earthquakes and heavy rain. In the 24 years I've been here, it seems like Typhoons have gradually changed course, from largely, and most often, hitting southern and western Japan, to more directly approaching the Tokyo area, specifically Chiba, where I live. Temperatures are rising, as they are everywhere. In the summer, my school sends out daily mails for clubs and sports teams that talk about what the daily wet bulb temperature is going to be. It's no longer a question of if, but when Tokyo will regularly experience 40C days.
Absurdly, though, it seems (knocking on wood) like we might have actually found a place that might be a safer, better place to live, but all of that is predicated on the idea that things will continue in any way as they have so far, which is to say, probably incredibly wrong, and I'm living in a kind of eternal dread about just how wrong even this will have been.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:00 PM on January 19 [4 favorites]
I'm living in western NC at the moment, and we were just notified that home insurance will be going up 20% in my county. Where there is no substantial wildfire risk, no sea level risk, no earthquakes. On the coast, prices are doubling. Even in areas where sea level rise isn't expected to impact for over 100 years.
Someone please explain why this isnt just pure opportunistic, predatory rate hiking.
posted by ananci at 5:41 PM on January 19
Someone please explain why this isnt just pure opportunistic, predatory rate hiking.
posted by ananci at 5:41 PM on January 19
Yes, anyone who holds some power would increase their take whenever costs & prices increase.
"Inflation is always and everywhere [a differential] re-distributional phenomenon" .. "of structural change." — Nitzan et al
Almost everyone has some elevated risks from climate change though. Sea level rise is slow, but floods happen everywhere. Also tornados, etc.
I'd expect insurance companies have significant real cost inflation beyond the consumer price index. In particular, re-insurance has become an absolutely booming market since they must increase prices so much now. I'd expect the reinsurers for your insurer profited more than your insurer.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:19 PM on January 20
"Inflation is always and everywhere [a differential] re-distributional phenomenon" .. "of structural change." — Nitzan et al
Almost everyone has some elevated risks from climate change though. Sea level rise is slow, but floods happen everywhere. Also tornados, etc.
I'd expect insurance companies have significant real cost inflation beyond the consumer price index. In particular, re-insurance has become an absolutely booming market since they must increase prices so much now. I'd expect the reinsurers for your insurer profited more than your insurer.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:19 PM on January 20
Someone please explain why this isnt just pure opportunistic, predatory rate hiking.
The theory, I guess, would be that the increased frequency of disasters in unexpected places leads insurers to elevate their baseline expectations of risk even in places where there may be no articulable reason to do so.
Alternatively, insurers may be doing a fair amount of Comcasting, trusting that their existing customers will mostly prefer to avoid changing to a competitor and putting a proportionately heavier burden on those existing customers. Shopping around may be worthwhile.
More alternatively, the use of similar best practices, databases, models, etc. on the back end may lead to de facto price fixing and a general collapse of competitive incentives.
But subjectively, after having had my premiums triple following a small claim, such that I ended up paying the amount of the claim and then some over the following year, leaving me with something less like insurance and more like an unfavorable installment plan, I am skeptical that these companies even have a business model other than "you give me money now."
posted by Not A Thing at 1:31 PM on January 20
The theory, I guess, would be that the increased frequency of disasters in unexpected places leads insurers to elevate their baseline expectations of risk even in places where there may be no articulable reason to do so.
Alternatively, insurers may be doing a fair amount of Comcasting, trusting that their existing customers will mostly prefer to avoid changing to a competitor and putting a proportionately heavier burden on those existing customers. Shopping around may be worthwhile.
More alternatively, the use of similar best practices, databases, models, etc. on the back end may lead to de facto price fixing and a general collapse of competitive incentives.
But subjectively, after having had my premiums triple following a small claim, such that I ended up paying the amount of the claim and then some over the following year, leaving me with something less like insurance and more like an unfavorable installment plan, I am skeptical that these companies even have a business model other than "you give me money now."
posted by Not A Thing at 1:31 PM on January 20
I was reviewing the amount that someone was paying for insurance in New Zealand and for an equivalent property in Australia, the insurance was three times higher in NZ.
She was an architect and said, "You forget that there is a reason that it's called the Shaky Isles - it's not so much insurance as a rebuild fund. Everyone is so impressed with Napier in New Zealand for its beautiful 1930s architecture and that is because it is pretty much the ONLY 1930s architecture in New Zealand as everything else has been pulled down by earthquakes."
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 5:27 PM on January 21 [2 favorites]
She was an architect and said, "You forget that there is a reason that it's called the Shaky Isles - it's not so much insurance as a rebuild fund. Everyone is so impressed with Napier in New Zealand for its beautiful 1930s architecture and that is because it is pretty much the ONLY 1930s architecture in New Zealand as everything else has been pulled down by earthquakes."
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 5:27 PM on January 21 [2 favorites]
I’m in southern Arizona, so we’re pretty safe from natural disasters that would result in big losses for insurers. But we’re at huge risk from other natural disasters - extreme heat and extreme drought. Those disasters can be deadly and expensive to deal with, but they’re not the kinds of things that result in insurance companies paying for home and property losses. It’s always been hot in the summer here but it’s been getting worse. Climate change is going to be a harsh reality on this state. We’re growing like crazy here and we will be until we suddenly are not. Wildfires are a thing in a lot of the state, to be sure. We’ve had so much acreage burn over the last few years. Some of these burns have altered ecosystems to the point where they may never recover. But we keep building more and more homes further out into the desert, and with them more roads to handle more and more cars. I love this state, I’ve been here since I was an infant. I hate to see how badly Arizona is screwed for the future.
posted by azpenguin at 7:45 PM on January 21 [1 favorite]
posted by azpenguin at 7:45 PM on January 21 [1 favorite]
“By & large, mainstream economics exists to justify the behaviour of the powerful. On that front, the idea that interest rates ‘reduce’ inflation is a convenient veneer for an otherwise self-serving behaviour.” - Blair Fix
posted by jeffburdges at 2:25 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 2:25 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
“By & large, mainstream economics exists to justify the behaviour of the powerful. On that front, the idea that interest rates ‘reduce’ inflation is a convenient veneer for an otherwise self-serving behaviour.”
How do you choose to reconcile this author's work with the real world experience in Turkey? What should the Erdogan administration have done differently?
posted by pwnguin at 8:45 AM on January 23
How do you choose to reconcile this author's work with the real world experience in Turkey? What should the Erdogan administration have done differently?
posted by pwnguin at 8:45 AM on January 23
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