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this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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Well, some of the locations involved have simply become uninsurable. What do you expect that the insurance companies do? Pay for a brand new home every other year, just because it was burned down or blown away in a storm again? No commercial insurance ever could afford this.
Just like US health insurance, where the private companies don't take people with prior issues or handicaps. If you want them to be insured, you need a nationwide, mandatory insurance to spread the risk among many.
And even with a nationalized insurance coverage, some people might be forced to pay more than others, for unsuitable home locations with home insurances or unhealthy behavior (alcohol, tobacco, or drug use) with health insurance.
I have a lot more sympathy for the individual working class people who live in those places that have now lost their homes and livelihoods because capitalism and corporate oligarchy have dictated that profit is more important than the environment than I do for insurance companies.
That depends. A lot of those houses were built in places where no house should ever been built. Not for reasons of insurance, but also for environmental reasons, too. Not everything is the fault of greed. Some home owners are simply too stupid. You cannot force the costs of those people on the other insurance customers who did not build a wooden house in the middle of a forest known to burn down regularly.
While thats a gut reaction that many have but the issue is the "working class people " are the vast najoirty and are the enablers of these actions.
If you live in a democracy you are vicariously liable for the action of the people who represent you. Democracy is a lot of work and I posit that it is, needing many hours a week. This isnt an easily soluble problem as its taken many decades to get here. People are so unwilling to step outside the orthodoxy so politcans are as well. As Michel Barnier said abiit climate change , we know what to do, we just haven't figured out how to be re-eleted if we do.
On this, I side with insurers as they literaly can't insure then uninsurable under the current system but step outside of that, the insurance industry itself is a ponzi scheme, it's one mega disaster away from complete bankruptcy, perhaps Geico aside.
Like everything else we do, we'll tweak at the edges and never solve this. Solutions are untenable, for example you really need mass abandonment of places like Miami to "solve" it and that would take decades even if you undertook such a task seriously and we arent even at the level of discussing what needs doing let alone doing it.
We literally know Mimai etal will be unlivable in decades to come and yet... Its like having a tea party on a train track with no access to a train timetable, it can only end one way but exactly when is unknowable.
In an ideal world, I'd like to see them use their power, influence and bankroll to push forward greater action to combat climate change.
Surely there is an "enlightnend self-interest" arguement to be made for them funding action that will reduce future claims payouts?
Similar to insurers funding fire prevention activities, improvements in building codes, additional safety features in road design, etc.
That does not help as long as idiots build wooden sheds as "houses" right on the middle of woods that are known to burn down every few years. Common sense is rather rare with some people, and you cannot expect other people to pay for it via their insurance.