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.
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.
Insert Bugs Bunny sawing off Florida from the mainland
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
What if we threaten meteorologists and FEMA instead? /s
So just stop helping people in florida specifically?
Or we just gonna go full republican hatemonger and tell everyine from California earthquakes, To Midwestern Tornados, to Northern Blizzards, and more, to just get bent and that they should have thought to live somewhere without regular disasters? That they deserve what happens to them for “choosing” to live there?
My insurance company has determined that my house would cost about $450k to completely rebuild in the event of a total loss. Thankfully in the Northeast the risk of my house being destroyed is low, so they charge me $1,100 annually. Even with a few houses in my area being destroyed by fire, flood, or extreme weather, they still make enough to build up their reserves, pay their employees, and kick back some to the investors.
How much would that company need to charge in Florida so they could still pay to fix the houses and pay everybody that works for them? Definitely not $1,100/yr because replacing just a single broken window costs $1,100.
Now think about if the Federal government began covering Florida. They would have the same issue as private insurers - there is no amount they can charge that will not deplete their funds faster than they take in premiums.
Definitely not $1,100/yr because replacing just a single broken window costs $1,100.
Gee, if only there was some kind of pooled money that people could pay into so they could cover such things. So people could pay small, affordable amounts to get taken care of and helped if tragedy strikes them.
You know, like spreading the risk out, like some kind of…insurance?
And besides, Sounds like you specifically just want to hang people out to dry in Florida for the sin of living in Florida since you conveniently neglected/ignored the biggest part of my post about where does the line get cut for telling people they don’t matter because where they live.
And of course, I doubt you’d be so “Well I dont deserve help cause its my choice to live here” when disaster strikes where you live, or your mother, or family live. I bet you’d be full of righteous fury and indignation if anyone dared to say that to you.
But its different when it personally affects you, right?
If everyone in the US paid to rebuild Florida over and over that’s not insurance that’s practically a subsidy. Do you think it’s fair for someone in Illinois who has no benefit of Florida beach front views pay the price to fix a snowbirds vacation home over and over?
Florida is different because the risk is perpetually high and living there is a choice. It’s fine for people to choose that risk, but I would expect sky high coverage.
Do you think it’s fair for someone in Illinois who has no benefit of Florida beach front views pay the price to fix a snowbirds vacation home over and over?
You’re right. Its not fair for people to have lower insurance costs and a single unified pool.
It obviously makes much more sense to pay 3x the amount to a national, private insurance provder, have them take most of that for CEO and executive pay/bonuses/benefits, and then close offices and cancel policies in florida because they cant “afford” it.
Fuck off with your right wing bullshit already. You aint masking half as well as you think you are with this project 2025 shit.
I’m definitely not a Republican. Sorry my take seems to have struck a chord with you, but I don’t think what I said was illogical.
So, in the post you’re replying to, it’s laid out how insurance wouldn’t work, and your reply is “Have you considered insurance?”
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.
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
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.
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.)
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.
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.
One 800 foot hotel is way better than the 10 80 foot hotels that usually get built.
Anyone that rebuilds in place after their whole house is destroyed is nuts… if you get insurance payout… this is your chance to move.
And we should demand that insurers stop paying for shit that we could predict. They should fill Florida with recyclable stuff as a big landfill and with rocks, then just drop a few invasive tree species, elephants, lions etc and put a big fence around the place. Then each year we would only need to rescue animals and not people. Rescuing animals is far more inconsequential. Nobody cares if the animals are homeless, but everyone hates homeless people.
Insurers have this in their pricing. Which is why you see some withdrawing completely, some offer stripped insurance that won’t cover this and the ones that will still offer hurricane coverage will do so at prices that will cover their exposure… and that will be prohibitively expensive for most.
Insurance exists to pay out. We don’t need to give them more reasons to deny people. Making laws to prevent rebuilding is the real answer.
I’m being sarcastic ofcourse. Let me get my beer out of the fridge…who put this elephant 🐘 in here! I’ve told you guys to never put an elephant in the fridge when there’s already a giraffe 🦒 in there! LOL.
Florida was interesting to briefly visit. But at this cost, we might as well give it back to nature.
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Agreed. If they signed a policy they should pay for the loss. It should be an actual risk that we are paying them to ensure won’t happen…so if it does, then they should pay for it. And if it doesn’t make sense, they should not insure you. But then it would be good to not actually require insurance for home ownership. I would love to do that in case I don’t actually care if the place gets hit by a hurricane. That incentive pushes me to design my house such that it can survive with little to no monetary loss to myself.
Insurance companies in the US have become a Ponzai scam instead of a service.
is that a meme or did you accidentally butcher the term “ponzi scheme” which is something entirely different? not saying insurances aren’t often a scam. just a different kind.
I modified it slightly to suit the situation.
Why do you not think a Ponzai scheme fits?
Because a Ponzi scheme revolves around paying past people with fresh money without using it as promised at all.
Insurances (when fraudulent) collect money but don’t pay out anyone unless forced by lawsuits. Ponzi schemes are s vers specific financial tactic.
I guess I see enough parallels to call it “close enough”, but I guess that’s a matter of perspective.
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I don’t understand the pun you are going for here
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.
Insurance companies: “Wait you actually expect us to provide the service you’re paying us for? That’s not how this works!”
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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.
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.
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.
every client of the companies affected with see that cost
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! 🤣
Who could have seen this coming?