How is anyone going to sit there with a straight face and say that the economy is booming and people are doing fine after shit like this? I feel like every single day I see the same articles "X...
How is anyone going to sit there with a straight face and say that the economy is booming and people are doing fine after shit like this? I feel like every single day I see the same articles "X costs 40-50% more than it did 5 years ago" and I feel it in my wallet when I'm grocery shopping and hell when I'm paying my rent and utilities.
While insurance increases can be somewhat attributed to the increase in the cost of building materials and labor, most of this is coming because of a recalculation in the risk of property damage...
While insurance increases can be somewhat attributed to the increase in the cost of building materials and labor, most of this is coming because of a recalculation in the risk of property damage due to weather and natural disasters. The economy and inflation doesn't have any effect on hurricanes, wildfires, and tornadoes.
People still have to pay those prices though, that's the point I'm making. Everything is so much more goddamn expensive than it was 5 years ago, and most peoples wages (outside of minimum who...
People still have to pay those prices though, that's the point I'm making. Everything is so much more goddamn expensive than it was 5 years ago, and most peoples wages (outside of minimum who weren't buying homes anyway) haven't gone up a reasonable amount to compensate
This is not necessarily true, at least in the US. Wage growth has generally outpaced inflation for the past 4 years, with the most growth happening at the lower end of the income scale. In fact,...
and most peoples wages (outside of minimum who weren't buying homes anyway) haven't gone up a reasonable amount to compensate
This is not necessarily true, at least in the US. Wage growth has generally outpaced inflation for the past 4 years, with the most growth happening at the lower end of the income scale. In fact, wage growth is the best is has been in the US in decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
The median wage has grown by over 22% since 2019? Mine sure as hell hasn't. Even if that is true, I have a very hard time believing most people's expenses have only risen 20% My rent alone has...
The median wage has grown by over 22% since 2019? Mine sure as hell hasn't. Even if that is true, I have a very hard time believing most people's expenses have only risen 20% My rent alone has gone up 50% in that time.
Sample size of one. Mine's gone up 40%. Housing is only one component of inflation, and is highly regional. The numbers don't lie, unless you think they are being falsified in some way. A big...
Mine sure as hell hasn't.
Sample size of one. Mine's gone up 40%.
I have a very hard time believing most people's expenses have only risen 20% My rent alone has gone up 50% in that time.
Housing is only one component of inflation, and is highly regional.
The numbers don't lie, unless you think they are being falsified in some way.
A big source of wage growth has been at the lower end of the income scale as well. Where I live, most service jobs were paying $8-$10/hour before the pandemic. They all now start at $15/hour.
Seems like the money would be going into investments (which is what insurance companies do to have adequate reserves) or construction (when they pay out). Rebuilding houses after a hurricane or a...
Seems like the money would be going into investments (which is what insurance companies do to have adequate reserves) or construction (when they pay out).
Rebuilding houses after a hurricane or a fire doesn't make the country any better off than before it happened, but it's definitely economic activity that someone gets paid for.
I purchased a house six years ago. In that time, our insurance cost has nearly tripled. I was told by my insurance company last year that they would not renew my flood coverage even though I live...
I purchased a house six years ago. In that time, our insurance cost has nearly tripled.
I was told by my insurance company last year that they would not renew my flood coverage even though I live in an "area of minimal flood hazard" according to FEMA. Due to the age of our house (it was built in 1980), no one will cover it.
We had to get our state run insurance of last resort. It has deductible that's twice what our previous plan was, in addition to a co-insurance percentage of the damages we have to pay. It also has a much lower maximum payout. And it costs four times as much. Oh, and our state's insurance system is borderline insolvent, so who knows if they'll even be able to pay if something major happens that impacts a large swath of people.
The media has done a very poor job explaining to people exactly what climate change will mean for individual lives. They like to focus on things like rising sea levels, as those are easy to...
Exemplary
The media has done a very poor job explaining to people exactly what climate change will mean for individual lives. They like to focus on things like rising sea levels, as those are easy to understand and nice and dramatic. But how most people in developed countries will really be most affected by climate change is through rising insurance premiums.
Storms are getting more intense and more frequent. What this means is that our old risk models are simply no longer valid. For instance, flood maps are based on prior rainfall and weather data. But we've just taken the stable climate that we've enjoyed for the last 10 thousand years and thrown it into a wood chipper. Weather patterns, maximum river cresting heights, possible storm surge heights, etc., these are now all very difficult to effectively impossible to predict. In terms of climate, we literally don't live on the same planet we used to. Everything that has come before is useless to predicting risk levels. The past is no longer a useful guide for the future. This stuff is all highly nonlinear. We're looking at a complete reshuffling of global weather patterns. It's not as simple as just assuming floods will slowly get a little worse as temperatures slowly rise.
And it's not going to get any better. If we stopped emitting CO2 today, after a few years, things would stabilize. We could then gather some good long-term data on our new warmer planet, and we could go back to making well-informed insurance decisions. But that's not going to happen. It's not only that the climate has changed, but that it will continue to do so. We can't gather good risk data, because that requires decades of observations, and the climate will continue to change over that period.
Finally, it's important to consider that we have a finite capacity to repair and replace damaged structures. When a hurricane comes through and levels a city, that doesn't magically increase the number of carpenters, plumbers, and electricians that exist across the country. More natural disasters means that trade workers are now stretched thinner, which means they charge higher prices. Oh, and this is in an environment where we already have a severe housing shortage and most skilled tradesmen already have more work than they know what to do with.
Insurance is ultimately how we, in the developed world, are going to manage our retreat in the face of climate change. Our elected governments simply do not and will not have the willpower to look people straight in the eye and tell them, "your city is doomed, and it should be abandoned." Politics is rife with toxic positivity. Instead, the powers that be will let insurance manage our retreat from high risk areas. And "high risk" could mean entire states. Insurance premiums will soar. In turn, property values will plummet as potential buyers need to devote more to insurance that could have gone for a monthly P&I payment. Eventually, the premiums rise high enough and the property value fall low enough that it won't be worth it for anyone to live there. At that point, properties will be abandoned.
Climate change has long been seen as an abstract problem that only far-off generations. However, what was once the far future is now simply...now. And again, the media has done a poor job of explaining what climate change will mean for real people. People imagine cities slowly being swallowed by rising sea levels. In reality, at least in wealthy countries, the primary impact most people will experience will be in their homes. First, insurance will become expensive. Then, homes will become uninsurable. When that happens, they will be ineligible for mortgages. And ultimately, they will be abandoned all together and surrendered to the elements.
Remember, the only way we have to judge the risk of anything is to look at past events and calculate probabilities accordingly. And we no longer live on the same planet our ancestors did. We are living on an alien world, and we have no idea what this place is capable of.
I'm skeptical of the argument that people don't learn and can't adapt to worse weather. While it's true that cultural adaptation sometimes takes surprisingly long, people have adapted to climates...
I'm skeptical of the argument that people don't learn and can't adapt to worse weather. While it's true that cultural adaptation sometimes takes surprisingly long, people have adapted to climates from the tropics to the poles. (Not to mention, sometimes they have to adapt to war, and immigrants have to adapt to major cultural differences.) Stronger buildings in less vulnerable locations don't seem like that much of a stretch.
I expect at least some people will adapt. It may be quite expensive and we might not like it very much, though. As is usually the case, the poor suffer more.
A persistent shortage of tradespeople and high prices will likely result in more people going into the trades eventually, along with doing more themselves. Higher prices for labor also inspire labor-saving improvements.
I'll add that the US has something else to offer to tradespeople who come from other places, should the government choose to do so: visas and citizenship. They're very valuable!
From the article: The other four are in Louisiana and Mississippi. There’s a chart showing that the highest rates are in the south. Hurricanes, I’d guess.
From the article:
Florida homeowners pay the most for home insurance, with an average annual rate of $10,996 in 2023. Insurify predicts costs will increase an additional 7% in 2024 to $11,759.
Louisiana pays the second-highest home insurance rate, at $6,354 annually. The state will see the greatest increase in 2024, with a projected 23% hike, bringing the average rate to $7,809.
Six of the 10 most expensive cities for homeowners insurance are in Florida.
The other four are in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Sixty percent of homeowners don’t carry separate flood insurance, and 13% erroneously believed their standard home insurance policy included it.
There’s a chart showing that the highest rates are in the south. Hurricanes, I’d guess.
Also rainstorms in the South. It's not unusual to have particularly heavy rain for a few days that floods the local creek. Sometimes it's related to hurricanes but not always.
Also rainstorms in the South. It's not unusual to have particularly heavy rain for a few days that floods the local creek. Sometimes it's related to hurricanes but not always.
How is anyone going to sit there with a straight face and say that the economy is booming and people are doing fine after shit like this? I feel like every single day I see the same articles "X costs 40-50% more than it did 5 years ago" and I feel it in my wallet when I'm grocery shopping and hell when I'm paying my rent and utilities.
While insurance increases can be somewhat attributed to the increase in the cost of building materials and labor, most of this is coming because of a recalculation in the risk of property damage due to weather and natural disasters. The economy and inflation doesn't have any effect on hurricanes, wildfires, and tornadoes.
People still have to pay those prices though, that's the point I'm making. Everything is so much more goddamn expensive than it was 5 years ago, and most peoples wages (outside of minimum who weren't buying homes anyway) haven't gone up a reasonable amount to compensate
This is not necessarily true, at least in the US. Wage growth has generally outpaced inflation for the past 4 years, with the most growth happening at the lower end of the income scale. In fact, wage growth is the best is has been in the US in decades. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
The median wage has grown by over 22% since 2019? Mine sure as hell hasn't. Even if that is true, I have a very hard time believing most people's expenses have only risen 20% My rent alone has gone up 50% in that time.
Sample size of one. Mine's gone up 40%.
Housing is only one component of inflation, and is highly regional.
The numbers don't lie, unless you think they are being falsified in some way.
A big source of wage growth has been at the lower end of the income scale as well. Where I live, most service jobs were paying $8-$10/hour before the pandemic. They all now start at $15/hour.
Seems like the money would be going into investments (which is what insurance companies do to have adequate reserves) or construction (when they pay out).
Rebuilding houses after a hurricane or a fire doesn't make the country any better off than before it happened, but it's definitely economic activity that someone gets paid for.
I purchased a house six years ago. In that time, our insurance cost has nearly tripled.
I was told by my insurance company last year that they would not renew my flood coverage even though I live in an "area of minimal flood hazard" according to FEMA. Due to the age of our house (it was built in 1980), no one will cover it.
We had to get our state run insurance of last resort. It has deductible that's twice what our previous plan was, in addition to a co-insurance percentage of the damages we have to pay. It also has a much lower maximum payout. And it costs four times as much. Oh, and our state's insurance system is borderline insolvent, so who knows if they'll even be able to pay if something major happens that impacts a large swath of people.
The media has done a very poor job explaining to people exactly what climate change will mean for individual lives. They like to focus on things like rising sea levels, as those are easy to understand and nice and dramatic. But how most people in developed countries will really be most affected by climate change is through rising insurance premiums.
Storms are getting more intense and more frequent. What this means is that our old risk models are simply no longer valid. For instance, flood maps are based on prior rainfall and weather data. But we've just taken the stable climate that we've enjoyed for the last 10 thousand years and thrown it into a wood chipper. Weather patterns, maximum river cresting heights, possible storm surge heights, etc., these are now all very difficult to effectively impossible to predict. In terms of climate, we literally don't live on the same planet we used to. Everything that has come before is useless to predicting risk levels. The past is no longer a useful guide for the future. This stuff is all highly nonlinear. We're looking at a complete reshuffling of global weather patterns. It's not as simple as just assuming floods will slowly get a little worse as temperatures slowly rise.
And it's not going to get any better. If we stopped emitting CO2 today, after a few years, things would stabilize. We could then gather some good long-term data on our new warmer planet, and we could go back to making well-informed insurance decisions. But that's not going to happen. It's not only that the climate has changed, but that it will continue to do so. We can't gather good risk data, because that requires decades of observations, and the climate will continue to change over that period.
Finally, it's important to consider that we have a finite capacity to repair and replace damaged structures. When a hurricane comes through and levels a city, that doesn't magically increase the number of carpenters, plumbers, and electricians that exist across the country. More natural disasters means that trade workers are now stretched thinner, which means they charge higher prices. Oh, and this is in an environment where we already have a severe housing shortage and most skilled tradesmen already have more work than they know what to do with.
Insurance is ultimately how we, in the developed world, are going to manage our retreat in the face of climate change. Our elected governments simply do not and will not have the willpower to look people straight in the eye and tell them, "your city is doomed, and it should be abandoned." Politics is rife with toxic positivity. Instead, the powers that be will let insurance manage our retreat from high risk areas. And "high risk" could mean entire states. Insurance premiums will soar. In turn, property values will plummet as potential buyers need to devote more to insurance that could have gone for a monthly P&I payment. Eventually, the premiums rise high enough and the property value fall low enough that it won't be worth it for anyone to live there. At that point, properties will be abandoned.
Climate change has long been seen as an abstract problem that only far-off generations. However, what was once the far future is now simply...now. And again, the media has done a poor job of explaining what climate change will mean for real people. People imagine cities slowly being swallowed by rising sea levels. In reality, at least in wealthy countries, the primary impact most people will experience will be in their homes. First, insurance will become expensive. Then, homes will become uninsurable. When that happens, they will be ineligible for mortgages. And ultimately, they will be abandoned all together and surrendered to the elements.
Remember, the only way we have to judge the risk of anything is to look at past events and calculate probabilities accordingly. And we no longer live on the same planet our ancestors did. We are living on an alien world, and we have no idea what this place is capable of.
I'm skeptical of the argument that people don't learn and can't adapt to worse weather. While it's true that cultural adaptation sometimes takes surprisingly long, people have adapted to climates from the tropics to the poles. (Not to mention, sometimes they have to adapt to war, and immigrants have to adapt to major cultural differences.) Stronger buildings in less vulnerable locations don't seem like that much of a stretch.
I expect at least some people will adapt. It may be quite expensive and we might not like it very much, though. As is usually the case, the poor suffer more.
A persistent shortage of tradespeople and high prices will likely result in more people going into the trades eventually, along with doing more themselves. Higher prices for labor also inspire labor-saving improvements.
I'll add that the US has something else to offer to tradespeople who come from other places, should the government choose to do so: visas and citizenship. They're very valuable!
From the article:
The other four are in Louisiana and Mississippi.
There’s a chart showing that the highest rates are in the south. Hurricanes, I’d guess.
Also rainstorms in the South. It's not unusual to have particularly heavy rain for a few days that floods the local creek. Sometimes it's related to hurricanes but not always.