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[-] WoahWoah@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Florida did this to themselves by deregulating parts of the insurance industry and making denials easier so that insurance companies would keep insuring places that are most likely to suffer from the effects of global warming and are in high-risk locations that people refuse to leave from.

Turns out Florida basically said "here, we'll make it so you can keep taking people's insurance payments and give them the illusion of homeowners insurance, but we will make it so you can easily and regularly deny any actual claims."

Classic Florida! 🤣

[-] BigBenis@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago

Insurance companies: "Wait you actually expect us to provide the service you're paying us for? That's not how this works!"

[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 72 points 2 days ago

This is why insurance should be nationalized as part of your taxes.

Anyone thats not a brainwashed rightwing lunatic would see that paying 100-300 dollars a year on taxes would be a hell of a lot better than 100+ dollars a month just to buy a CEO a golden parachute and another yacht

But as long as right wing lunatics are out there literally hunting aid workers and evaluators, its never gonna happen.. because they want misery, pain, and destruction. its why Project 2025 wants to get rid of all of it.

[-] sakodak@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Believe me, I'm with you. But a complication to this is that insurance companies employ millions of people. Nationalizing them needs to take all those livelihoods into account, and would be nearly impossible without going full on socialist (which I am completely for, I don't think it's feasible to continue a capitalist system when it is clearly breaking down and killing the planet while doing so.)

[-] MSids@lemmy.world 52 points 1 day ago

I agree with nationalized healthcare insurance, but I don't know if I agree with using taxes to fund an underwriting account for houses in Florida that are guaranteed to get destroyed year after year.

Hurricanes are not getting smaller. Continuing to rebuild in Florida seems like building in the shadow of a smoking volcano.

[-] sue_me_please@awful.systems 2 points 1 day ago

Insurance can still payout and people can still be made whole for property that's deemed uninhabitable. You do not have to "continue to rebuild in Florida", but you can make sure people's lives aren't completely ruined as a result of natural disasters.

[-] MSids@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I think a similar strategy is used with Federal flood insurance. When properties are destroyed multiple times I think they offer a buyout.

[-] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 10 points 1 day ago

Insert Bugs Bunny sawing off Florida from the mainland

[-] bamfic@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Go a bit deeper. Everywhere is fucked. Nowhere will be insurable soon. Now what? Maybe we should get serious about degrowth and climate change instead

[-] Fuzzy_Red_Panda@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago

What if we threaten meteorologists and FEMA instead? /s

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[-] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Flood insurance is nationally subsidized. People use it to afford their marina properties in Washington state.

[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

Even making it a state plan would work better in Florida than what we currently have. They let private insurers cherry pick the less risky houses, and cover whoever is left with the state plan. Then those private for profit insurers take the premiums, pay big bonuses to themselves, dissolve the company and leave, rinse and repeat. It's a scam.

[-] PlantJam@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The cherry picking is usually a compromise to keep the companies operating in the state at all. If the state says a company must offer coverage for all perils for the entire state or leave entirely, it doesn't take an underwriter to know Florida is a bad bet. There are similar carve outs for windstorm coverage in other gulf coast states, and I think for wildfire coverage on the west coast.

Edit: I couldn't find anything about a single peril state plan for California, but this article describes some of the recent insurance issues in the state: https://apnews.com/article/california-home-insurance-wildfire-risk-premiums-047bdfa514ce93dac83c82735a15554a

[-] xapr@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 23 hours ago

The "California Earthquake Authority" provides the earthquake insurance for California: https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/about-cea/frequently-asked-questions

I had not realized before reading that now that it's actually not state-funded. It sounds like it's a pool of all insurers together.

[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Florida is talking about a state windstorm pool (risk pooling, not gambling pool) like the national flood insurance. I guess that would be the compromise, but the insurance industry here really is plagued with fraud. The companies keep folding then coming back, I can only assume they are lining the pockets of the legislature with our money.

In the years I've owned a house (about 30) I have paid them enough that if I'd banked it instead at a reasonable rate of return I could buy another house. But have made no claims. So they are charging like every house will be knocked down once every 30 years, I guess, but again, my previous house and that whole neighborhood from 1925 is still standing.

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[-] N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com 49 points 2 days ago

Insurance companies save money by denying claims on a normal day. Paying to rebuild an entire state would jeopardize the big number going up and thus executive bonuses.

They won't be paying claims. They're not going to pay to rebuild a house that their models say will be knocked down again in 2-3 years by the next "storm of the century." Insurance companies exist to extract wealth, not to help people. And they will always have more lawyers than you.

[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 18 points 2 days ago

They also have all kinds of weasel options in their coverage. "Sorry, you were covered for wind, not flood" They'll avoid paying any way they can.

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[-] LaVacaMariposa@mander.xyz 71 points 2 days ago

Florida needs to stop rebuilding in the barrier islands. It's unfortunate for the people that live there, but this is going to keep happening over and over again.

Just plant mangroves and let them do their job of protecting the mainland.

[-] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago

Stop building on the coasts in general. leave them as natural barriers and wonders, rather than having a 800 foot tall hotel 3 feet from the seawater.

[-] RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 1 day ago

One 800 foot hotel is way better than the 10 80 foot hotels that usually get built.

[-] Badeendje@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago

Anyone that rebuilds in place after their whole house is destroyed is nuts.. if you get insurance payout.. this is your chance to move.

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[-] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

every client of the companies affected with see that cost

[-] sudoku@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

well yes, that's how insurance works

[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 71 points 2 days ago

Welcome to climate change. This is just the tip of the iceberg: things are just going to continue getting worse and worse each and every year.

[-] solsangraal@lemmy.zip 132 points 3 days ago

there is absolutely nothing in florida that makes it worth living there

[-] SeaJ@lemm.ee 73 points 3 days ago

Florida is like an old used car: cheap upfront costs but expensive maintenance costs.

[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 38 points 2 days ago

Florida is like an old used car: cheap up front costs for a dangerous vehicle that you know will eventually fall apart but you act surprised when you lose a ball joint in your front suspension on the highway while doing 120 kph because you ignored your mechanic for the fourth time this year. The look on your face as your car crosses the median and you're about to impact a cement truck.

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[-] orcrist@lemm.ee 20 points 2 days ago

I feel bad for the Tampa homeowner who discovered homes in their neighborhood used to be worth seven figures and are now worth low six figures.

I think we all predicted that kind of thing would happen somewhere someday, and Florida is one of those top places on the list, but even so, we should be sympathetic. You never really think this kind of thing is going to happen to you, after all. Best of luck to everyone whose homes were destroyed.

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

I don’t. They dropped everything and moved across the country to a place with a known problematic housing market then gave the shocked picachu face when they couldn’t get back out. Remember that they dropped $550k cash. They are going to recover.

[-] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

Someone who can afford a seven figure house is part of the 1% I'm not going to feel sorry about them losing a portion of their wealth that still keeps them above 95% of people.

[-] BlackAura@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Uhhhh.

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+percentage+of+homes+are+over+%241+million

Apparently per Redfin 8.5% of homes in the US are 7 figures or more. We're not talking the 1% here.

In California the median home price is almost $800,000.

I'm in a HCOL area in Washington State and regularly see 3bdrm and sometimes 2bdrm condos for over 1 million.

Not to mention sure your home is equity or net worth but most people only buy one and sell it anytime they move. Many of these people also planned on selling it / downsizing in retirement and converting it towards their retirement fund.

Remember that "afford" doesn't mean they have a million dollars. "afford" means they saved up a down-payment and then paid interest and mortgage payments (sometimes barely scraping by) for at least 30 years. Usually many more years if they moved from smaller house or a condo to a larger house when they decided to have a family (thereby starting a new mortgage for another 30 years). Or worst case, they haven't paid it off and now are underwater on their mortgage.

The banks are the ones making crazy money on all this.

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this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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