State Farm will discontinue coverage for 72,000 houses and apartments in California starting this summer, the insurance giant said this week, nine months after announcing it would not issue new home policies in the state
The Illinois-based company, California’s largest insurer, cited soaring costs, the increasing risk of catastrophes like wildfires and outdated regulations as reasons it won’t renew the policies on 30,000 houses and 42,000 apartments, the Bay Area News Group reported Thursday.
Wouldn’t it be a great idea not to build in places that don’t burn down, get flooded, or blown away on a regular base? Because that is the main reason that those houses cannot be insured anymore.
Most california wildfires are caused by decaying power lines because PG&E decided they would rather buy their own stock than fix their infrastructure.
And global climate change is turning more and more of the country into disaster prone areas. You really think the answer is everyone should just move? Explain the logistics of that.
If, like with PG&E, they would actually extract all the money from the culprits, insurances would come out fine in the end. As they don’t, this boils down to an accepted risk to live in that place.
And: there is more need to build a house in the middle of a dry forest known to burn easily. Yes, people want to live right in the nature, but sometimes having a safety gap is the smarter choice.