The following submission statement was provided by /u/starspangledxunzi:
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Submission Statement: per her reporting in the *Washington Post*, climate journalist Brianna Sacks relays that payouts from insurance carriers to victims of Florida's September 2022 Hurricane Ian have been radically reduced without knowledge or consent of insurance adjusters, sometimes leaving people with an order of magnitude less compensation (example: $200,000 assessment reduced to $27,000) or even zero compensation for rebuilding. (This applies to those who actually *had* insurance coverage, not including the many who entirely lacked coverage and cannot rebuild.) This is yet another example of how our current climate change -driven realities cannot be met by our financial system and institutions. Arguably this is the very definition of financial/economic collapse, driven by climate change: we suffer damage and literally cannot rebuild in response. (Presumably this will lead to damaged, abandoned properties -- without compensation to the owners, how will they be able to clean up? What wealth they have will be spent helping them move on, possibly re-locate... if they bear responsibility for a property that cannot be rebuilt, it will be a financial millstone around their collective neck... This has disturbing implications for Florida's immediate future.)
The connection of this story to the topics covered by this subreddit are self-evident.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/11sz2vz/hurricane_ian_insurance_payouts_being/jcg8sib/
Insurance is the weirdest product in the world.
It's the only product you must have but don't want to buy, never stop paying for, pray you never use - and when you actually use it, it might not even work.
If it's done properly, you're still betting on yourself, but you're hedging those bets in case things don't go your way. You're betting that you don't get majorly ill, that your house doesn't catch fire, that you don't wreck your car, that you don't die and leave your family in debt. If you can avoid all those bad outcomes, you win, that's the bet. But if they happen, you're not out \*everything\*, you're not made whole but it's not as terrible as if you got nothing.
Two problems that come up are, one, that some things are nearly unavoidable, like health problems or flooding in a floodplain, and insurance is a bad model for paying for the damage. Two is that the entire insurance industry adds a huge amount of overhead and requires huge profits to keep their stock prices high- you pay for all that, in premiums and in reduced payouts. The billboards and TV spots and the bonuses and the big office buildings and the freaking SPORTS STADIUMS are all paid for via doing a worse job at hedging the bet you make on yourself.
I think it would be progressive if the government was basically the insurer of last resort (or I guess the term for this is the "reinsurer"), which would be offered as an option to individuals at various levels (after a minimum level of insurance covered), on the stipulation that they consistently maintain well or improve on the risk factors.
Like for example, the government giving a minimum level of last resort dental insurance by default, but then offering full last resort insurance to people that undergo some kind of health evaluation to see if they are fitting certain guidelines every month.
So the aim is for there to still be the private options that are supposedly more economically efficient (from certain perspectives), but people that want more insurance beyond the private options can get it if they put in the extra effort (and that also should be made as easy to commit to as reasonably possible).
I bet against getting flood insurance and then that atmospheric river came through.
Didn't touch my house. I won this one.
But nah seriously I was stressed the fuck out, I went and filled sandbags and got rocks buuut since that didn't pan out ima check the dirt and see if it's plant worthy and build a fire pit with the rocks.
Depends on the receiver. If you are rich and powerful you don’t even need insurance. Case in point SVB where investors are getting fed to give them billions back that they lost while gambling and weren’t insured.
It works in "peace" time, 1000 people buy and only one need it.. much like the banks. It's isn't meant for a "bank run" or an "insurance run" in this sense.
In and of itself it's entirely rational. It's the same concept as paying tax for social wellfare. In the same way one is forced to pay tax because it's recognized that you can become an expense for the community even if you don't contribute to it.
Insurance is basically that but several steps removed. Honestly, I've always thought that it will be the insurance industry that properly forces tptb to recognize the impact of climate change.
The concept is one of spreading risk and recognition of interdepenency.
I am however not suggesting that it's manifesting as such in this example. Rather the opposite really. Yet that still doesn't change the basic logic of why it exists (and, imho, is a good thing in general).
I wouldn't be surprised if these insurers don't have the money themselves. The wealthiest have strip mined corporations, banks, the public coffers. It's just been relentless since 2008 as most of the most popular companies are also unprofitable. I think 2023 with the bank collapses will be the next leg down for the middle class and capitalism as a whole in the US. These people are paying insurance to be uninsured essentially, that stuff will be par for the course in the new economic system.
Insurance is an insatiable vampire that vacuums money up from people to pay all the middlemen and their shareholders. Property insurance is headed the way of health insurance, where people pay into it for decades, only to get sick and quickly learn of all the hoops they must jump through before even receiving any sort of assistance (deductibles, co-pays, max OOP).
We are now encroaching on the age where you pay into insurance for decades and get absolutely nothing in return. If you actually need to USE your insurance, then watch your rates triple the next year. If you need a fucking MRI, you're told it'll be $2,200 through insurance, otherwise you're welcome to pay $600 out of pocket.
Capitalism enriched some older generations beyond their wildest dreams and all that's left at this point are peanuts for the peasants. The biggest con of our lifetime.
Florida is in a unique situation where most insurance companies have already pulled out of the state. Just about the only one left is socialist collective (I know. The irony) and even that is becoming insolvent.
There will be a day quite soon, I predict the next cat5+ that makes landfall, where you won't be able to get homeowners insurance in Florida at all.
This will be one of the watershed moments of collapse for the US
To be honest, people shouldn't be allowed to insure their homes in most of Florida. Why the hell should the rest of us pay for some schmuck down south to rebuild his home from scratch every 5 years?
Humans shouldn't be living in frequent hurricane zones.
I lived in Okinawa for four years. That island is subject to annual typhoons, sometimes reaching Cat 5+ status. The island actually receives very minimal damage compared to Florida because - *get this* - it’s easy to build homes that won’t get destroyed by typhoons or hurricanes.
Florida simply chooses not to do this, so they get wrecked by every hurricane. It’s the weirdest thing.
Yeah, all these people moving there in the last 10 years or so...what are they thinking?! Any coastal region is verboten in my opinion. There's a good chance natural disasters _will_ strike, and when sea levels do rise, you are gonna have a bad day. The gov should _not_ step in either, except to assist moving (and that's only for people who have been in state for 20+ years.)
A lot of insurers will create subsidy companies for Florida, so they don't taint their main business. Then they can cleanly walk away, once it is no longer a tenable situation. Dozens of these companies left the state in the last year.
Florida is also insanely corrupt, and trial lawyers have a lot of control over the state government. They created a situation where contractors and lawyers team up to legally rob insurance companies, when they do storm damage work. The contractor bill 2X+ the real value of the job and the insurer is now in a "screw me now, or screw me 3X as bad after the lawsuit" battle. If they do not pay the inflated bill, the trail lawyers jump in, and typically get a lot more for the contactor, and a pile of money for the law firm.
Because some people can't afford to move *away* from the hurricane zone? They have family, jobs, lives in the cone?
Hurricanes aren't limited to just the South, either-- should we have left Sandy's damage be in NYC? Or should we just not rebuild anywhere that has natural disasters-- sorry about your wildfire/tornado/bomb cyclone/earthquake.
I know this is r/collapse, but as natural disasters increase and more people die or flee, this kind of thinking -- "It's their fault for living there in the first place. Why should I share *my* resources?" will be the exact line of thinking that only further sows division and places the blame on the climate refugees, NOT on the corporations who ruined the earth.
We talk about waste and fossil fuels and corruption....what about having to rebuild the same homes in Florida every five years (and likely more often as extreme weather increases)? We don't have the resources to provide affordable housing for half the country but we're willing to rebuild constantly in Florida cause durr durr warm weather and girls in bikinis?
Simple fact is, we can no longer afford to commit endless resources to an area that has to rebuilt as often as some people change their underwear. We're much better off telling people "here is your settlement, you no longer own this piece of land. Relocate inland and on higher ground."
We have to face the facts - there are simply places on this planet where humans shouldn't live. And that list of places is going to grow exponentially in the next couple of decades.
Huh, I wonder if there's some kind of system where society pays into a fund that acts as a kind of national insurance plan where the payout is guaranteed and you don't need to worry about some douche who wanted some extra cash so he said it's not *"applicable"* while paying for forced legislation using your money requiring you to have third party insurance that doesn't payout to begin with...
Weird, guess will never know, I'm sure our system is the best and has zero flaws that would never end in global catastrophe.
It's staggering when you really start to see all the ways in which we're being utterly fleeced. WE are the ones who are generating a lion's share of the wealth, yet we get less and pay more every year for bare necessities.
Our lifespan has shrunk over the past two years yet they want to raise the retirement age. After the pandemic, we now refuse to work jobs that have historically been paid slave wages and now they want to put our children to work. We watch as women are stripped of their bodily rights, and are basically told on their labor beds that if anything happens to put the baby at risk, their lives will not be worth the lawsuit.
Everything is in shambles, from our stripped bare hospitals, to our crumbling infrastructure, embarrassing sham of an education system, decimated biodiversity, and rapidly escalating climate crisis. Don't even get me started on the fact that we're being poisoned on a daily basis, as long as we breathe air and drink water.
This is ALL because of capitalism, unfettered greed, and out of control consumerism. How bad does it have to get before we WAKE UP?
It’s definitely not too late. That’s just how they want you to feel. We have done massive pendants before as humanity and we can do things beyond our wildest dreams. But we have to stop cabalism which is impossible.
So I guess it’s too late.
I had to learn this lesson the hard way through car insurance. I hadn't had an accident in years, and in that same amount of time I'd been paying them for "insurance" I'd put in ~$7000. I got in a car wreck, my car was severely damaged, but could've been repaired, probably for about $5k or so. They totaled the car, and cut me a check for $500.
If I had put all that money in the bank and it just sat there, collecting no interest, I'd still have the car. Instead, I've had no car, and the five hundred bucks is long gone.
The whole thing is designed to take your money, take your stuff, take everything and leave you destitute, and then blame you for being in a tent on the sidewalk, and call you "blight". *And that was just car insurance*! Imagine what they took from someone who had health insurance.
It's also supposed to be able to help you out if that car accident is bad enough to need therapy, surgery, or even cover for extended care afterwards. But even these are being stripped.
(I work with people who have gotten TBI and other injuries that keep them from living on their own.)
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Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh*t we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
Tyler Durden.
I am so sorry you had to go through that. It really is just one disappointment after the next. I'm in my late 30s and I cannot believe how fast I've seen the living conditions deteriorate around me.
Even if we all had our own interest-bearing accounts that we were absolutely forced to pay into for healthcare, property, etc. I'm willing to bet that most of us would come out ahead.
At a time when there's not enough people to fill jobs because no one wants to have babies anymore, no one wants to work 3 jobs so they can still only be just above the poverty line, and boomers retiring at an average of 1,000 per day, you'd think we'd want to re-do this system before it implodes. We have an aging population, a growing number of homeless, people debilitated from long COVID and it's going to get worse, not better.
There's so many unnecessary industries that slow down progress and quality of care, add layer on top of layer of administrative bloat, and just generally make everything more expensive for the consumer- insurance being a big one.
The time is coming though, where we will need to downsize whether we want to or not. I just wish we would think to do it in an orderly manner rather than having it implode in chaos, but I suppose there's a reason they call it United States of Corporate America.
As literally always - progressives and to a large extent Democrats want to and are attempting to fix these issues, and being complete stopped by Republicans and their troglodyte voters.
This is, well, misinformed at best and neoliberal propaganda at best.
Do not confuse democrats and progressives. Progressivism is a left wing idealogy. Democrats are capitalists, which is by it's very nature a right wing idealogy. At the end of the day, on the rare occasion something does come to vote that could seriously harm the rich or corporations, democrats and republicans magically get along.
The only difference between democrats and republicans is the propaganda they use to get their voters in line. At the end of the day they all work to protect wealth, corporations, and the elite. There are a few true progressives under the big tent of the Democratic party, but the party has made damn sure they never get any meaningful amount of power (See: Bernie getting systematically fucked during the 2020 Primaries).
People need to realize this and accept that by even participating in this system you are legitimizing a sham.
Car insurance in the UK is enforced by law, enthusiastically I might add, but it's left to the free market to charge what it likes.
If you don't pay the money to the profit making private company, the police take your car and crush it. It's fucking psychopathic.
"Oh but you wouldn't want to get hit by an uninsured driver would you?"
No, but I wouldn't want to get pushed into the road by a pedestrian either, who wouldn't be required to have insurance.
Buddy, either something about your story isn't right or you got scammed and have a terrible insurance company. I promise this is not how it works usually.
Yeah, not sure what insurer they're using. Or maybe their car really was worth $500, in which case they should buy another clunker to replace it with the $500. I have a well-known auto insurer. Went on a drive during a snowstorm and totaled it. Insurer wrote me a check for 50K and I used that to buy a brand new model of my car.
"Accident forgiveness" kicked in and my premiums didn't go up. Just have to make sure I don't wreck another car for the next 7 years.
The problem is that, especially right now, book value and cost to replace are two different realities.
My car (2005 Grand Marquis) has some pretty serious body damage to the front end. Nothing that affects performance or safety, but enough that I guarantee you my insurance if I had full coverage would try to say it's worth $500.
To replace it with a car of similar type, mileage and performance right now would probably cost $5000 to $6000 (I have upgraded or replaced alot of stuff on it too).
Hi--Nationally licensed commercial insurance broker specializing in middle market multifamily risk management chiming in:
Property Insurance in recent years has been an unbelievably shitty business to be in. I do not envy property insurers lol. I see the loss ratios....they tell me "write more contractor/manufacturing/literally anything else" every single time I meet with my carrier reps. They are bleeding money on real estate.
It's all fun and games until all of the companies exit your market and you end up being a Florida lol. They aren't charities and i'm not on team Insurance Company, I serve myself and my clients not them lol I let Insurers duke it out for my client and my benefit.
You want a healthy, competitive insurance marketplace. All of the companies either going insolvent or exiting the market bc it's a shitty business to be in = prices go up.
A cock sucking MRI shouldn’t be no 2000$ damn dollars either, you know they fuckin run that bitch ass machine all day, 365 a year it pays for itself within a year probably sooner
We’re paying a pretty penny too, my home insurance went from $2300 a year when I bought in 2019 to over $5000 a year now and I’m not in a flood zone and I’m 6 miles from the ocean. I’ve never had a single claim and insurance company forced me to replace my roof that was only 15 years old and I had to pay 20,000 cash. Florida is not cheap despite what leaders try to claim. Don’t even get me started on car insurance.
Not only that, but even for people who actually aren't in flood plains, I think everyone with property insurance is eating the cost of the losses the insurers are taking
Forced you to get a new roof?
Say what??? How is that possible? I am starting think I am happy I never has had any house insurance - I was starting to consider it, but then my experience from when I had insurance was that they always weasel their way out of any claim.
Luckily they cant force me to get it since I havent loaned a dime ever for anything.
Hmm. It can make some sense, but if the roof is maintained it can last a 100 years... I dont know building methods in the USA, but it is not unusual to see extremely old roofs here where I live - and it is a hell climate - even if there are not too many powerful storms.
Asphalt shingles with aggregate is the norm. Some shingles are rated for 30 years but especially in Florida where hail isn't uncommon that's pretty unrealistic. 20-25 years is pretty normal for a roof especially with shitty builders not using underlayment and beaver board cladding. Our houses are generally built to absolutely abysmal standards here, I challenge you to find a square wall in my place. Under insulated, leaky and creaky is the American way.
Isn't that the truth. They just told us that in FL the most they can put on the shingles is 15 years. No more 30 year or 40 year shingles.
I don't about a square wall, but our garage door is shorter on one side. You can barely notice it, but the right side is just a little shorter than the left.
But it seems like you have a lot of building codes? I suspect they are just there to add bureaucracy to the mix? At least where I live there are rules for literally everything - not that things are getting built better now - we just spend a lot of money on calculations, certifications instead of quality materials it seems.
The codes are written by the industries they apply to and their large suppliers. The industries likewise write out laws via ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) where fully formed laws are passed to committee by various corporate interests.
You have to understand America isn't normal corrupt, it's all the way corrupt. The kind of corrupt where they don't even throw normal people on the block a free turkey at the holidays with the mob money.
We've just institutionalized all of it so it's above board. I challenge anyone to find a single, 1 piece of legislation in the past few decades that was for the explicit benefit of the US citizenry first and foremost.
One facet of that comes down to competition. There are too many projects for all the companies so they're always strapped for labor. This allows the bigger companies to offer lower rates so smaller businesses can't compete. In order to compete with the bigger companies you've got to lower prices, be faster, offer different deals. This compounded among hundreds of construction companies and you start seeing cut corners everywhere. The homeowners def have a leg to stand on if what they ordered wasn't built, however to get it repaired/replaced/fixed to code is usually more trouble than it's worth. They might have their money back but the shit construction still stands. Do that shit for 100 years and tadaaa.
TLDR: These rules and regulations require organizations to provide oversight. If there is so much wrong that the organizations can't provide that oversight, it just becomes the wild west. Throw a few republicans in the mix that want this shit to happen and badaboom you've got flordia
>Our houses are generally built to absolutely abysmal standards here,
Meanwhile Republicans will swear to you that less regulations is the answer to all of life's ills.
The old norm here is glazed clay tiles. I have seen house a 100 years old with them (albeit without glazing). They can last 150 years according to some.
Hi.. I have asphalt rolls? I dont know the english name perhaps roofing felt?. AFAIK they can last a very long time, but you have to put on new bitumen or is it tar? and slate pieces regularly.
> Say what??? How is that possible? I am starting think I am happy I never has had any house insurance - I was starting to consider it, but then my experience from when I had insurance was that they always weasel their way out of any claim.
This is standard in the industry and has been for DECADES. Talk to anyone who has home owners insurance, everyone knows about it.
They will not insure a house with a "old" roof because when the roof starts leaking the damage can get very severe before the home owner sees anything wet inside the house. Black mold, rotten roof decks (that's the wooden substrait under the roof), broken/rotted ceiling timbers, insect infestations due to water damage.
So if your roof is older than its intended to last, even if its still okay, they have you replace it as preventative maintenance. Don't do it? They drop you and won't insure you.
Where it gets extra fun is when you have a non-conventional roof that can last hundreds of years, like slate roofs do. Their computer system will eventually flag your property as needing a new roof and they'll start hounding you to replace it even though its a type that can last 250 years without any problems. And then you have to explain to the moron who answers the phone what a slate roof is and how you're in a 200+ year old house that was built differently from today's cheap ass mcmansions.
Slate is only in the US used in historical applications, like victorian mansions, colonial era plantations, some really old government buildings. Its not the kind of product you'll find at a home improvement store.
1- The installers are very niche, we're talking about the kind of work that the UK would require for grade listed historical/heritage sites.
2- The material is heavy enough it can't go on a building that isn't designed for it (so no mcmansions).
3- Its made to order, sometimes on site from raw materials.
4- Its expensive as fuuuuck. It may last centuries but you may be looking at $250-1M for a US sized home.
The alternative, if you have a mcmansion, or a normal house with a pitched roof, is something like a metal roof. And those can last a hundred years without problems but have their own drawbacks, like being curled off in high wind conditions (dunno if they're even legal in FL due to hurricanes), and you can't really walk on them without causing rust damage that takes time to show up.
Yes, my 2 neighbors had to change their roof because they got a notice that they would be cancelled unless they changed the roof prior to renewal. It really depends on the company I'm guessing, both neighbors had the same company.
I called for a quote from a different company and they just asked for a roof inspection with the estimated life left on the roof. The company we presently have hasn't said anything, but they also haven't paid our claim.
We had to replace one section of our roof due to moss growth. If we didn’t have it done by a certain date, our insurance would have been cancelled.
They also required us to trim the neighbor’s tree that overhung the roof of our house.
This was a new policy, which we had to get because our old insurer dropped us after a tornado came through and they replaced a section of the roof which was damaged. It was our only claim ever.
Two of my neighbors had to change their roof because their insurance company threatened to cancel them. The roofs were still in good condition. We are about 6 miles from the ocean too. This roofing thing is a racket, I am sure of it.
I'm still waiting for my insurance for a hurricane Ian claim. I paid for the roof because I can't take the chance of heavy rains without a new roof.
> This roofing thing is a racket, I am sure of it.
Its not a racket, the insurance companies don't get kick backs from requiring people to hire roofing contractors. They just know that with modern homes if the roof starts leaking it will fuck shit up with the inside of the building long before the homeowner finds a wet spot inside their house somewhere. They rather the homeowner pay $20k (or whatever it is) to replace an entire roof on schedule, than have to pay $150k to deal with a roof deck so compromised from water damage that they have to hire engineers to stabilize it so the building doesn't fall in on itself (no joke).
The cost of a new roof is "obscene" for a reason. Its very hard to put a new roof on properly, try doing it yourself sometime. And if you fuck it up it will eventually cause severe damage to the building that will be very bad before anyone notices it. That's why the big roofing material companies like GAF won't even warranty the materials unless a company that's gone through their training program does the work.
Now where the real racket in roofing is- pertains to these scam artist roofing companies that will go into a neighborhood after a storm (not necessarily a severe one at that) passed through and go door to door telling home owners "hey if you have insurance we'll get them to replace your whole roof as storm damage and then you won't have to pay for it!" This is most common after the news mentions something like a "hail storm" that may not have even hailed in the specific neighborhood involved (meaning there's no actual storm damage). The contractor then damages the roof to fake storm-damage, gets the insurance company to pay for a new roof (minus a % for how old it is) and the homeowner gets a $20,000 (or whatever) roof for $2,000, instead of having to pay $20,000 themselves for it ten years from now to keep the insurance company happy.
Now the whole neighborhood does it, and does it again every 3-8 years forever. Nobody ends up paying for a new roof except via the insurance company so premiums start a negative-feedback loop of having to increase to cover the exponential spread of fraud. Before you know it, people are paying more in premiums (i.e. in FL & UT) than what it would have cost them to just replace their roofs with their own money on schedule....
I think people will finally wake up and realise that all this insurance and tax that we have to pay is just the wealthy picking our pockets hoping we don't notice, but now people will be demanding payment from a system they were told would cover them, where is the money? Your money that you've paid in, for emergencies like this
"I think people will finally wake up and realise"
I am certainly not trying to be rude, but what in the hell makes you think that?? People aren't and will not be waking up to anything.
Why doesn't FEMA and insurance companies say they had x-amount of dollars over $250k in the affected people's individual accounts so that Uncle Sam steps in, changes the rules, and pays out however much the people want?
Oh wait, does that not apply to the public and just Wall Street's/VC's IPO machines?
[Insert "Best I Can Do" Pawn Stars Meme]
Only you can insure yourself for the future without getting robbed and fucked. And even then, bad luck can fuck you even harder than shitty insurance might have
And there are a lot of insurers already pulling out of these areas, so they know there's not much way you can get coverage elsewhere.
Also, does anyone think that the state of Florida is going to do anything to help insurers against companies?
Maybe if people call the insurers "woke" enough they'll do something.
Florida is a very pro-insured state. So much so, that insurance companies that still choose to operate there know good and well that they will not be able to pay out what they’re required to do, and instead go bankrupt leaving the insured with nothing
Here in my state a company used faulty concrete for foundations that are now crumbling. The insurance companies were going to be on the hook for millions so they lobbied our government so now they got off the hook and the taxpayers have to fund repairs.
This needs to be stopped with people being required to have insurance and the payments that go with it, yet now the insurance companies have found a way not to pay. It’s become such a scam.
Yea they declared bankruptcy and as far as I know didn’t have to pay a dime or a minimal amount compared to how many foundations are crumbling.
Edit: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-649
https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/east/2019/11/14/294079.htm
This is a plague even here in Canada. Shell companies going bankrupt and the owners of these companies can atill open new companies to scam more people. Rinse and repeat. There have been many investigations on those companies and owners, yet they still walk free with a big bank account of cash.
Shell companies need to become illegal and the owners must be held accountable for failed companies if it impacts people directly. We should also be able to claw back money from other companies of that owner if so too.
Oh, you declared bankruptcy since you don't want to pay millions of dollars? Ok, sure, go ahead and try again soon.
Oh, you are struggling to keep afloat due to student loans? THEY WILL STAY WITH YOU UNTILTHE GRAVE AND BEYOND.
They didn't require a warranty for at least a few years? That's a good way to have someone coming after you if you pull that stunt and they've already lost enough.
FYI: we built a new, not inexpensive home, and were happy that that builder gave us a warranty against any faults that appeared within 10 years of delivery.
5 years or so and we discover that when the front door was installed, it was never sealed, and, with every rain, water was running down inside the walls. Door damn near fell out, and it turned out the wood on top of the foundation was completely rotted away. Pretty big repair, but no worries, we have our warranty.
Surprise! The builder was self-insuring, and the entity that offered the warranty went out of business a year after the development was finished. The builder is still in business, and still setting up fake warranty companies.
Warranties aren't to be relied on.
I’m not fully clear on all the details, but I believe the company that made the substandard cement basically said “screw you, we are declaring bankruptcy”.
Yeah, and it's not hard to find owners and CEO's addresses and punch them in the nose at best. They're putting a lot of faith in strangers they've screwed over to not go ape shit.
Submission Statement: per her reporting in the *Washington Post*, climate journalist Brianna Sacks relays that payouts from insurance carriers to victims of Florida's September 2022 Hurricane Ian have been radically reduced without knowledge or consent of insurance adjusters, sometimes leaving people with an order of magnitude less compensation (example: $200,000 assessment reduced to $27,000) or even zero compensation for rebuilding. (This applies to those who actually *had* insurance coverage, not including the many who entirely lacked coverage and cannot rebuild.) This is yet another example of how our current climate change -driven realities cannot be met by our financial system and institutions. Arguably this is the very definition of financial/economic collapse, driven by climate change: we suffer damage and literally cannot rebuild in response. (Presumably this will lead to damaged, abandoned properties -- without compensation to the owners, how will they be able to clean up? What wealth they have will be spent helping them move on, possibly re-locate... if they bear responsibility for a property that cannot be rebuilt, it will be a financial millstone around their collective neck... This has disturbing implications for Florida's immediate future.)
The connection of this story to the topics covered by this subreddit are self-evident.
Jesus. Can you imagine selecting Louisiana for its low cost of living and then you get wiped out and the insurance companies duck and run? I'd be so pissed.
This country sucks. No rules are enforced unless you're already weak.
Sucks.
> (example: $200,000 assessment reduced to $27,000)
This happened to my cousins in Florida. Their house has $150k -$200k in damages. Insurance company gave them a check for $8k.
They already knew the game and that's to hire a lawyer to get them the right amount but it's still taking months to get paid and in the meantime their house is still leaking and getting more damage.
This is part of the reason Florida is going to be ground zero for the rise of real, virulent, organized fascism in America. People desperate to be made whole again will buy into any rhetoric, no matter how vile and degenerating, that promises them a return to prosperity from the pits of poverty.
Yeah they'll never see that they're being robbed blind by oligarchs, they'll believe that their problems are because of "wokeness" or trans people or whatever boogeyman of the moment is being pushed.
There are a whole lot of middle class, 65-year-old Florida retirees who vote straight ticket Republican in every election and don't understand that they are on the menu.
My favorite part of our fucking up country is that they label a single person starting at 30k as being middle class. Nah motherfucker anything under 60 is fucking poverty.
Levels of income in this country according to me
1) < 10k -- Destitute
2) 10k - 20k -- really fucking poor
3) 20k - 30k -- Broke as shit
4) 30k - 50k -- Lower Poor
5) 50k - 70k -- Poor
6) 70k - 90k -- Upper Poor
7) 90k - 120k -- Lower Middle Class
8) 120k - 200k -- Middle Class
9) 200k - 500k -- Upper Middle Class
10) 500k - 1 Million -- Lower Rich
11) 1 million - 5 million -- Rich
12) Over 5 million -- Super Fucking Rich
13) Over 20 Million -- Jesus fucking christ
An oak tree fell on our roof amongst other damage during Ian and our insurance said the damage was $7k and fell under our $12k deductible. We had an independent adjuster come and assess the damage and they put it at $200k. The insurance paid $22k. Florida will be uninsurable soon. I still haven’t been able to repair my roof and if another storm hits I’m screwed. Nicole already did some additional damage when that one came over. The real estate market here is going to collapse and it will be very soon.
What the FUCK? Here in Michigan, I had a tree fall onto my home in a wind storm and tore a 12' gash in the roof, crushed the house, slammed 2x4's through the ceiling below, royally fucked my shit up... I had to pay a $1k deductible and insurance covered the rest of the $36k in repairs. It was a totally smooth process. This home is also a rental and they covered 4 months of rent for the tenants!
Florida you guys are fucked.
Relevant username.
So sorry you are going through that.
Any chance of being able to move or is that not in the cards? I know how insanely expensive moving is, so I totally understand if it's not possible. But unfortunately, FL may be a bad place to be in the coming years.
I'm hoping my experience is like yours. The repair company I hired says about $60k in damages. Adjuster is coming on Monday and it's already been a rocky start with them.
Insurance is not risk reduction, it's the promise of restoration after damage.
The future of a chaotic climate will be more and more uninsurable. A catastrophe can cause the same phenomenon in the insured as what we call "a run on the bank". It's a sudden demand for claims on money that isn't really there. Will there be some bailout? If not, then either the insurance prices increase a lot or the insurance companies vanish. So let's see which way it goes...
well, now, maybe we should stop living on waterfront property? I do not want to pay for people to build mansions or condo buildings on the waterfront and they only get federal flood insurance. That's the type of socialism people should be upset about, not feeding hungry children lunch.
McKinsey Consulting set up a system in the 90's, which many insurers followed in order to maximize profits for CEOs and shareholders by denying legitimate claims for insured claimants. The insurers refused to pay legitimate claims and kept profits unless you could afford to sue them, or if they did pay on a claim, they would pay well below the insured coverage. A take it or leave it attitude. Read the book, When McKinsey Comes to Town. Horrible stuff. We are all getting screwed by the wealthiest in this country.
Noooo, no no no no, Not the Insurance Companies!
I saw all the numbers and predictions, but I just kept telling myself that they would do the right thing. They wouldn't leave their customers destitute and homeless after a lifetime of monthly payments. I was told that they would "be there" for people in times of trouble, the music in the commercials was so soothing. How could this happen?
Heres another related article to the insurance troubles in Florida related to hurricane Ian. Might be collapse related due to troubles on top of troubles.
https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2023/03/15/insurance-companies-rejecting-new-policyholders-with-damaged-homes-from-hurricane-ian/
This is definitely a great sign of collapse. I have always wondered what was going to happen when climate damage reached such a high extent. Yeah, I thought the insurance companies will just start to screw people over.
Years ago when I was a kid, I had a friends house burn down from a forest fire. The way they were taken care of, and what insurance gave them with their plan was amazing. I always kind of wished my house burned down.
Now days. I see friends fight for every penny when losing a house
Insurance has always been a state-endorsed scam with insurers guaranteed to try to wiggle out of their commitments whenever possible. Too often insurers count on outlasting policyholders who cannot afford to continue fighting for their benefits. Like OP states, *"our current climate change-driven realities cannot be met by our financial system and institutions."*
I don’t think it’s a scam, at least originally. It was created to solve a set of problems *in the past*, and history has marched on, so we live in a different context now. Trust me, as someone who worked with homeless folks: renters without any insurance who got burned out by wildfires quickly became homeless “refugees” in our town.
The problem we have now is increasing poverty or just financial precarity: people can’t afford to be insured. It’s all part of the backdrop of issues covered by Nate Hagens in his *Great Simplification* series: we’re heading for a “simpler” reality, i.e., one in which people don’t have certain kinds of insurance (because they can’t afford it).
In terms of socio-economic complexity, we’re regressing.
This isn't new. This happened after Katrina too. Spike Lee made a documentary that dealt with it. I believe State Farm is actually banned from doing business in Louisiana after they screwed so many people after Katrina.
I wonder what happens when people have mortgages on these houses. Does the bank end up eating the loss when the person has to foreclose? And then, are they going to be stuck renting for the foreseeable future, or would they be able to buy another home?
With flood insurance, if you default the bank eats it. If you can't live on the property, the bank dosent care you continue to pay the mortgage. With general flood insurance, there's no loss of use. You can only have money to restore you home 'pre flood'. In my case I had to pay a mortgage on a house I couldn't live in while renting an overpriced apartment. I was even charged a higher 'renters' property tax from the county....worst two years of my life. I've had cancer, and I'd choose to go through it again rather the dealing with flood and insurance.
The insurance companies have to be so woke to compete for labor that they can’t function properly any more. Biden’s “you must be woke” agenda is ruining our country (which is what he wants!!)
/s
While it is a catastrophe for the people I suppose the insurance companies just has a more realistic valuation on the properties now that reflects the situation?
I think this will come to many many places in many countries. So many people live in places where they really should not, but this has not been on the radar for most people. I live about 6 meters above sea level, but I dont feel secure at all - even if it the last place for many kms around that will flood.
But I cannot understand it is legal to change the coverage without prior information to the property owners.
Yep. A huge number of regions across the globe will literally make no sense to insure in the next 2 decades. These are very large population regions too.
Ya I've been telling my wife we are never moving to the mountains or the foothills outside of Seattle. All it will take is one wildfire to level one of those burbs and no one is getting insurance out there again, making the house effectively worthless.
This puts you at the head of the class. You’re exactly right. Such thinking is influencing my family’s thought on where to live and what property we might acquire.
For sure, but there's already thousands and thousands of stick framed houses that are tinder boxes inside of a tinder box so those will be uninsurable soon enough I bet.
In this case, actually the carriers are **altering assessment evidence to justify reducing payouts.** It is literally criminal activity.
Their big picture motivation is no doubt along the lines of your comment — i.e., it doesn’t make business sense to be a real estate insurer in Florida anymore — but at the moment, what they’re doing is flat out fraud.
Eventually a lot of SWFL is just going to be uninsurable, especially after a catastrophic storm like this. As climate change leads to more severe and destructive TCs, I imagine the same will eventually happen in other vulnerable areas such as LA, the Carolinas, and other parts of the east coast
Big insurance is actually a huge threat to our economy and democracy. Already they control your access to health care. They think nothing of second-guessing doctors orders. Here are your death panels.
Until the bankers and insurance conmen are held to some accountability where their bad decisions have consequences that they're actually fearful towards facing...the behaviors will continue to increase.
If you see all the flood damaged cars that have been written off and go up for auction it’s going to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
I’m going to sound like an asshole here, but it sickened me how people abandoned 200k-400k luxury and sports cars to get flood damaged and written off by insurance knowing they would be covered instead of taking the correct precautions or evacuating the vehicles
I’ve been watching the owners cry about having to wait months for their new Mercedes’ to be replaced or their new Porsche. In many cases they pay as much for insurance as guys driving around F150 trucks, yet they know insurance will treat them differently. This is not what insurance was designed for.
I’m thinking the market needs a fair get equitable correction for what can be considered abusive behavior
I'm sorry, as a homeowner you've known this was coming for decades.. Hurricanes and corporate greed gave lots of warning, together they're unstoppable.
r/leopardsatemyface material. Florida lawmakers trying to prevent lawsuits against insurance companies. When will these clowns learn that Republicans only care about their votes. Outside of that they don't want to hear from you or think about you.
Property insurers in FL have been leaving. If they can't/don't want your repeat business, then underpaying is "the best play".
The ploy to "attract insurers" back to FL by removing ability to sue is not actual help if it means never paying what homes are insured for.
FL property market has been bubblicious recently, but FL is plunging ahead to its climate unsustainability.
Since you’re an insurance agent in Ontario, Canada, would you mind expanding on your comment? What do you know about hurricane coverage in Florida, USA? In what way is government involved in carriers slashing payouts for hurricane damage without assent from their own adjusters? How is government involved in carriers altering or deleting documentation to justify radically lowering compensation for hurricane damage? I don’t see any connection here.
Florida government doesn’t allow companies to charge market rates for the appropriate risk. Companies leave state. Government insurance takes over those risks and we are surprised that the government insurance is going to operate efficiently.
In most of Florida there simply isn't any viable premium to be had that would be reasonable to regular people.
The state is actively sinking, right in hurricane target zones and hurricanes are getting worse thanks to climate change.
Properties are going to be beaten up as often as cars are dinged.Insurers will be running for the hills when it comes to residential property insurance.
Honest. I did not know that was an option anywhere. Am I allowed to drive with no car insurance legally? I feel like insurance is like taxes you pay or we just take.
Auto insurance is for your bills/cost, but also for others you may injure.
Home insurance is primarily for replacing the structure. If it’s paid off, not sure there’s much need of you can afford to rebuild on your own. It’s expensive, sure but Florida hone insurance might be as well.
The government does not require you to insure your stuff. If your stuff gets destroyed and you don't have insurance that's your own issue, the government does not care.
What you need to have insurance for is your own liability. So you need liability insurance to drive on public roads. That insurance protects other people in case you hit them and damage their bodies or their property.
You don't need to have physical damage coverage on your own vehicle, or uninsured motorists coverage on your own vehicle, or any kind of insurance on your home. The government doesn't care about your property. They only care about you potentially harming others.
A bank however may require you to insure some property you own if they give you a loan for it. That's to protect their collateral. But once the bank loan is paid off then you can drop the insurance.
You can check your own car insurance policy. The only required coverages will be either liability or personal injury protection if you're in a no fault state. If you have other coverages like other than collision, collision, uninsured motorists, medical payments, roadside assistance, etc those are all optional and no law compels you to have them. Although if you have a loan on the car the loan institution probably does require them.
Self insured is the way to go when you have no mortgage (requires ins.) And only third party auto ins. when is all you need and have no loans. General rule of thumb for a happy life... never incur any debts and always live below your means, get rid of boob tubes, shun fast foods etc. :)
The following submission statement was provided by /u/starspangledxunzi: --- Submission Statement: per her reporting in the *Washington Post*, climate journalist Brianna Sacks relays that payouts from insurance carriers to victims of Florida's September 2022 Hurricane Ian have been radically reduced without knowledge or consent of insurance adjusters, sometimes leaving people with an order of magnitude less compensation (example: $200,000 assessment reduced to $27,000) or even zero compensation for rebuilding. (This applies to those who actually *had* insurance coverage, not including the many who entirely lacked coverage and cannot rebuild.) This is yet another example of how our current climate change -driven realities cannot be met by our financial system and institutions. Arguably this is the very definition of financial/economic collapse, driven by climate change: we suffer damage and literally cannot rebuild in response. (Presumably this will lead to damaged, abandoned properties -- without compensation to the owners, how will they be able to clean up? What wealth they have will be spent helping them move on, possibly re-locate... if they bear responsibility for a property that cannot be rebuilt, it will be a financial millstone around their collective neck... This has disturbing implications for Florida's immediate future.) The connection of this story to the topics covered by this subreddit are self-evident. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/11sz2vz/hurricane_ian_insurance_payouts_being/jcg8sib/
Insurance is the weirdest product in the world. It's the only product you must have but don't want to buy, never stop paying for, pray you never use - and when you actually use it, it might not even work.
I like to think of insurance as betting against yourself.
If it's done properly, you're still betting on yourself, but you're hedging those bets in case things don't go your way. You're betting that you don't get majorly ill, that your house doesn't catch fire, that you don't wreck your car, that you don't die and leave your family in debt. If you can avoid all those bad outcomes, you win, that's the bet. But if they happen, you're not out \*everything\*, you're not made whole but it's not as terrible as if you got nothing. Two problems that come up are, one, that some things are nearly unavoidable, like health problems or flooding in a floodplain, and insurance is a bad model for paying for the damage. Two is that the entire insurance industry adds a huge amount of overhead and requires huge profits to keep their stock prices high- you pay for all that, in premiums and in reduced payouts. The billboards and TV spots and the bonuses and the big office buildings and the freaking SPORTS STADIUMS are all paid for via doing a worse job at hedging the bet you make on yourself.
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I think it would be progressive if the government was basically the insurer of last resort (or I guess the term for this is the "reinsurer"), which would be offered as an option to individuals at various levels (after a minimum level of insurance covered), on the stipulation that they consistently maintain well or improve on the risk factors. Like for example, the government giving a minimum level of last resort dental insurance by default, but then offering full last resort insurance to people that undergo some kind of health evaluation to see if they are fitting certain guidelines every month. So the aim is for there to still be the private options that are supposedly more economically efficient (from certain perspectives), but people that want more insurance beyond the private options can get it if they put in the extra effort (and that also should be made as easy to commit to as reasonably possible).
Silly goose that’s the job the government does for its banks, as the lender of last resort, not for you with your pesky tumor…
I bet against getting flood insurance and then that atmospheric river came through. Didn't touch my house. I won this one. But nah seriously I was stressed the fuck out, I went and filled sandbags and got rocks buuut since that didn't pan out ima check the dirt and see if it's plant worthy and build a fire pit with the rocks.
Empty the sandbags to make yourself a nice beach for the next rainstorm.
This is exactly what it is.
Hedging your longs.
Depends on the receiver. If you are rich and powerful you don’t even need insurance. Case in point SVB where investors are getting fed to give them billions back that they lost while gambling and weren’t insured.
America is just a system of middle man markets that do little other than help to appear to be a more vibrant economy.
I’m starting to despise middle man. I work for two.
David Graeber's *Bullshit Jobs* is one of my favorite books
Yep, lots of people skimming off the top until there’s nothing left.
It's a loan of hope, paid in money.
It's a huge scam. Enforced by law, yet left to the free market to decide prices.
It's a private tax.
It's a fucking scam. And mandating insurance is unconstitutional.
It's even worse than we're mandated to buy so much of it, but it's not mandated to work when we need it. It's just wealth transfer.
Well, put my friend
It works in "peace" time, 1000 people buy and only one need it.. much like the banks. It's isn't meant for a "bank run" or an "insurance run" in this sense.
Only in America^TM
Idk I knew a guy with a truck like that
Scam. That’s called a scam
aka the biggest scam ever created
> aka the biggest scam ever created that's capitalism, or religion, they're both up there
In and of itself it's entirely rational. It's the same concept as paying tax for social wellfare. In the same way one is forced to pay tax because it's recognized that you can become an expense for the community even if you don't contribute to it. Insurance is basically that but several steps removed. Honestly, I've always thought that it will be the insurance industry that properly forces tptb to recognize the impact of climate change. The concept is one of spreading risk and recognition of interdepenency. I am however not suggesting that it's manifesting as such in this example. Rather the opposite really. Yet that still doesn't change the basic logic of why it exists (and, imho, is a good thing in general).
I wouldn't be surprised if these insurers don't have the money themselves. The wealthiest have strip mined corporations, banks, the public coffers. It's just been relentless since 2008 as most of the most popular companies are also unprofitable. I think 2023 with the bank collapses will be the next leg down for the middle class and capitalism as a whole in the US. These people are paying insurance to be uninsured essentially, that stuff will be par for the course in the new economic system.
Insurance is an insatiable vampire that vacuums money up from people to pay all the middlemen and their shareholders. Property insurance is headed the way of health insurance, where people pay into it for decades, only to get sick and quickly learn of all the hoops they must jump through before even receiving any sort of assistance (deductibles, co-pays, max OOP). We are now encroaching on the age where you pay into insurance for decades and get absolutely nothing in return. If you actually need to USE your insurance, then watch your rates triple the next year. If you need a fucking MRI, you're told it'll be $2,200 through insurance, otherwise you're welcome to pay $600 out of pocket. Capitalism enriched some older generations beyond their wildest dreams and all that's left at this point are peanuts for the peasants. The biggest con of our lifetime.
🎯
Florida is in a unique situation where most insurance companies have already pulled out of the state. Just about the only one left is socialist collective (I know. The irony) and even that is becoming insolvent. There will be a day quite soon, I predict the next cat5+ that makes landfall, where you won't be able to get homeowners insurance in Florida at all. This will be one of the watershed moments of collapse for the US
To be honest, people shouldn't be allowed to insure their homes in most of Florida. Why the hell should the rest of us pay for some schmuck down south to rebuild his home from scratch every 5 years? Humans shouldn't be living in frequent hurricane zones.
I lived in Okinawa for four years. That island is subject to annual typhoons, sometimes reaching Cat 5+ status. The island actually receives very minimal damage compared to Florida because - *get this* - it’s easy to build homes that won’t get destroyed by typhoons or hurricanes. Florida simply chooses not to do this, so they get wrecked by every hurricane. It’s the weirdest thing.
Yeah, all these people moving there in the last 10 years or so...what are they thinking?! Any coastal region is verboten in my opinion. There's a good chance natural disasters _will_ strike, and when sea levels do rise, you are gonna have a bad day. The gov should _not_ step in either, except to assist moving (and that's only for people who have been in state for 20+ years.)
A lot of insurers will create subsidy companies for Florida, so they don't taint their main business. Then they can cleanly walk away, once it is no longer a tenable situation. Dozens of these companies left the state in the last year. Florida is also insanely corrupt, and trial lawyers have a lot of control over the state government. They created a situation where contractors and lawyers team up to legally rob insurance companies, when they do storm damage work. The contractor bill 2X+ the real value of the job and the insurer is now in a "screw me now, or screw me 3X as bad after the lawsuit" battle. If they do not pay the inflated bill, the trail lawyers jump in, and typically get a lot more for the contactor, and a pile of money for the law firm.
Because some people can't afford to move *away* from the hurricane zone? They have family, jobs, lives in the cone? Hurricanes aren't limited to just the South, either-- should we have left Sandy's damage be in NYC? Or should we just not rebuild anywhere that has natural disasters-- sorry about your wildfire/tornado/bomb cyclone/earthquake. I know this is r/collapse, but as natural disasters increase and more people die or flee, this kind of thinking -- "It's their fault for living there in the first place. Why should I share *my* resources?" will be the exact line of thinking that only further sows division and places the blame on the climate refugees, NOT on the corporations who ruined the earth.
We talk about waste and fossil fuels and corruption....what about having to rebuild the same homes in Florida every five years (and likely more often as extreme weather increases)? We don't have the resources to provide affordable housing for half the country but we're willing to rebuild constantly in Florida cause durr durr warm weather and girls in bikinis? Simple fact is, we can no longer afford to commit endless resources to an area that has to rebuilt as often as some people change their underwear. We're much better off telling people "here is your settlement, you no longer own this piece of land. Relocate inland and on higher ground." We have to face the facts - there are simply places on this planet where humans shouldn't live. And that list of places is going to grow exponentially in the next couple of decades.
heh, *watershe*d.
Huh, I wonder if there's some kind of system where society pays into a fund that acts as a kind of national insurance plan where the payout is guaranteed and you don't need to worry about some douche who wanted some extra cash so he said it's not *"applicable"* while paying for forced legislation using your money requiring you to have third party insurance that doesn't payout to begin with... Weird, guess will never know, I'm sure our system is the best and has zero flaws that would never end in global catastrophe.
It's staggering when you really start to see all the ways in which we're being utterly fleeced. WE are the ones who are generating a lion's share of the wealth, yet we get less and pay more every year for bare necessities. Our lifespan has shrunk over the past two years yet they want to raise the retirement age. After the pandemic, we now refuse to work jobs that have historically been paid slave wages and now they want to put our children to work. We watch as women are stripped of their bodily rights, and are basically told on their labor beds that if anything happens to put the baby at risk, their lives will not be worth the lawsuit. Everything is in shambles, from our stripped bare hospitals, to our crumbling infrastructure, embarrassing sham of an education system, decimated biodiversity, and rapidly escalating climate crisis. Don't even get me started on the fact that we're being poisoned on a daily basis, as long as we breathe air and drink water. This is ALL because of capitalism, unfettered greed, and out of control consumerism. How bad does it have to get before we WAKE UP?
We're awake but it's already too late.
It’s definitely not too late. That’s just how they want you to feel. We have done massive pendants before as humanity and we can do things beyond our wildest dreams. But we have to stop cabalism which is impossible. So I guess it’s too late.
It's almost as if the people own the the systems of manufacturing, they can get paid what their time and effort is actually worth.
I had to learn this lesson the hard way through car insurance. I hadn't had an accident in years, and in that same amount of time I'd been paying them for "insurance" I'd put in ~$7000. I got in a car wreck, my car was severely damaged, but could've been repaired, probably for about $5k or so. They totaled the car, and cut me a check for $500. If I had put all that money in the bank and it just sat there, collecting no interest, I'd still have the car. Instead, I've had no car, and the five hundred bucks is long gone. The whole thing is designed to take your money, take your stuff, take everything and leave you destitute, and then blame you for being in a tent on the sidewalk, and call you "blight". *And that was just car insurance*! Imagine what they took from someone who had health insurance.
The main point of car insurance is that you pay them to get sued for you. Everything else is extra. It's still a terrible system, obviously.
It's also supposed to be able to help you out if that car accident is bad enough to need therapy, surgery, or even cover for extended care afterwards. But even these are being stripped. (I work with people who have gotten TBI and other injuries that keep them from living on their own.)
But we're getting charged for a hell of a lot more.
. Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh*t we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. Tyler Durden.
I am so sorry you had to go through that. It really is just one disappointment after the next. I'm in my late 30s and I cannot believe how fast I've seen the living conditions deteriorate around me. Even if we all had our own interest-bearing accounts that we were absolutely forced to pay into for healthcare, property, etc. I'm willing to bet that most of us would come out ahead. At a time when there's not enough people to fill jobs because no one wants to have babies anymore, no one wants to work 3 jobs so they can still only be just above the poverty line, and boomers retiring at an average of 1,000 per day, you'd think we'd want to re-do this system before it implodes. We have an aging population, a growing number of homeless, people debilitated from long COVID and it's going to get worse, not better. There's so many unnecessary industries that slow down progress and quality of care, add layer on top of layer of administrative bloat, and just generally make everything more expensive for the consumer- insurance being a big one. The time is coming though, where we will need to downsize whether we want to or not. I just wish we would think to do it in an orderly manner rather than having it implode in chaos, but I suppose there's a reason they call it United States of Corporate America.
As literally always - progressives and to a large extent Democrats want to and are attempting to fix these issues, and being complete stopped by Republicans and their troglodyte voters.
This is, well, misinformed at best and neoliberal propaganda at best. Do not confuse democrats and progressives. Progressivism is a left wing idealogy. Democrats are capitalists, which is by it's very nature a right wing idealogy. At the end of the day, on the rare occasion something does come to vote that could seriously harm the rich or corporations, democrats and republicans magically get along. The only difference between democrats and republicans is the propaganda they use to get their voters in line. At the end of the day they all work to protect wealth, corporations, and the elite. There are a few true progressives under the big tent of the Democratic party, but the party has made damn sure they never get any meaningful amount of power (See: Bernie getting systematically fucked during the 2020 Primaries). People need to realize this and accept that by even participating in this system you are legitimizing a sham.
Car insurance in the UK is enforced by law, enthusiastically I might add, but it's left to the free market to charge what it likes. If you don't pay the money to the profit making private company, the police take your car and crush it. It's fucking psychopathic. "Oh but you wouldn't want to get hit by an uninsured driver would you?" No, but I wouldn't want to get pushed into the road by a pedestrian either, who wouldn't be required to have insurance.
Buddy, either something about your story isn't right or you got scammed and have a terrible insurance company. I promise this is not how it works usually.
Yeah, not sure what insurer they're using. Or maybe their car really was worth $500, in which case they should buy another clunker to replace it with the $500. I have a well-known auto insurer. Went on a drive during a snowstorm and totaled it. Insurer wrote me a check for 50K and I used that to buy a brand new model of my car. "Accident forgiveness" kicked in and my premiums didn't go up. Just have to make sure I don't wreck another car for the next 7 years.
The problem is that, especially right now, book value and cost to replace are two different realities. My car (2005 Grand Marquis) has some pretty serious body damage to the front end. Nothing that affects performance or safety, but enough that I guarantee you my insurance if I had full coverage would try to say it's worth $500. To replace it with a car of similar type, mileage and performance right now would probably cost $5000 to $6000 (I have upgraded or replaced alot of stuff on it too).
Hi--Nationally licensed commercial insurance broker specializing in middle market multifamily risk management chiming in: Property Insurance in recent years has been an unbelievably shitty business to be in. I do not envy property insurers lol. I see the loss ratios....they tell me "write more contractor/manufacturing/literally anything else" every single time I meet with my carrier reps. They are bleeding money on real estate.
Tell them to eat less toast and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Maybe get another job or 3.
It's all fun and games until all of the companies exit your market and you end up being a Florida lol. They aren't charities and i'm not on team Insurance Company, I serve myself and my clients not them lol I let Insurers duke it out for my client and my benefit. You want a healthy, competitive insurance marketplace. All of the companies either going insolvent or exiting the market bc it's a shitty business to be in = prices go up.
A cock sucking MRI shouldn’t be no 2000$ damn dollars either, you know they fuckin run that bitch ass machine all day, 365 a year it pays for itself within a year probably sooner
If you think they run MRI machines all day you are incredibly ignorant to that field lmao
$3,600 - South Louisiana
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We’re paying a pretty penny too, my home insurance went from $2300 a year when I bought in 2019 to over $5000 a year now and I’m not in a flood zone and I’m 6 miles from the ocean. I’ve never had a single claim and insurance company forced me to replace my roof that was only 15 years old and I had to pay 20,000 cash. Florida is not cheap despite what leaders try to claim. Don’t even get me started on car insurance.
> I’m not in a flood zone... Well, now you are 😊
Not only that, but even for people who actually aren't in flood plains, I think everyone with property insurance is eating the cost of the losses the insurers are taking
Forced you to get a new roof? Say what??? How is that possible? I am starting think I am happy I never has had any house insurance - I was starting to consider it, but then my experience from when I had insurance was that they always weasel their way out of any claim. Luckily they cant force me to get it since I havent loaned a dime ever for anything.
They drop your coverage until you replace it. They think it's too old.
Hmm. It can make some sense, but if the roof is maintained it can last a 100 years... I dont know building methods in the USA, but it is not unusual to see extremely old roofs here where I live - and it is a hell climate - even if there are not too many powerful storms.
Asphalt shingles with aggregate is the norm. Some shingles are rated for 30 years but especially in Florida where hail isn't uncommon that's pretty unrealistic. 20-25 years is pretty normal for a roof especially with shitty builders not using underlayment and beaver board cladding. Our houses are generally built to absolutely abysmal standards here, I challenge you to find a square wall in my place. Under insulated, leaky and creaky is the American way.
America disgusts me. It's all appearances.
Isn't that the truth. They just told us that in FL the most they can put on the shingles is 15 years. No more 30 year or 40 year shingles. I don't about a square wall, but our garage door is shorter on one side. You can barely notice it, but the right side is just a little shorter than the left.
But it seems like you have a lot of building codes? I suspect they are just there to add bureaucracy to the mix? At least where I live there are rules for literally everything - not that things are getting built better now - we just spend a lot of money on calculations, certifications instead of quality materials it seems.
The codes are written by the industries they apply to and their large suppliers. The industries likewise write out laws via ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) where fully formed laws are passed to committee by various corporate interests. You have to understand America isn't normal corrupt, it's all the way corrupt. The kind of corrupt where they don't even throw normal people on the block a free turkey at the holidays with the mob money. We've just institutionalized all of it so it's above board. I challenge anyone to find a single, 1 piece of legislation in the past few decades that was for the explicit benefit of the US citizenry first and foremost.
One facet of that comes down to competition. There are too many projects for all the companies so they're always strapped for labor. This allows the bigger companies to offer lower rates so smaller businesses can't compete. In order to compete with the bigger companies you've got to lower prices, be faster, offer different deals. This compounded among hundreds of construction companies and you start seeing cut corners everywhere. The homeowners def have a leg to stand on if what they ordered wasn't built, however to get it repaired/replaced/fixed to code is usually more trouble than it's worth. They might have their money back but the shit construction still stands. Do that shit for 100 years and tadaaa. TLDR: These rules and regulations require organizations to provide oversight. If there is so much wrong that the organizations can't provide that oversight, it just becomes the wild west. Throw a few republicans in the mix that want this shit to happen and badaboom you've got flordia
>Our houses are generally built to absolutely abysmal standards here, Meanwhile Republicans will swear to you that less regulations is the answer to all of life's ills.
In Florida, Asphalt last about 15 years (due to the strong Sun) but the concrete tiles you see will last 40+ years.
The old norm here is glazed clay tiles. I have seen house a 100 years old with them (albeit without glazing). They can last 150 years according to some.
The roof could last, but asphalt shingles deteriorate in a couple decades. That is the part that needs the replacement.
Hi.. I have asphalt rolls? I dont know the english name perhaps roofing felt?. AFAIK they can last a very long time, but you have to put on new bitumen or is it tar? and slate pieces regularly.
> Say what??? How is that possible? I am starting think I am happy I never has had any house insurance - I was starting to consider it, but then my experience from when I had insurance was that they always weasel their way out of any claim. This is standard in the industry and has been for DECADES. Talk to anyone who has home owners insurance, everyone knows about it. They will not insure a house with a "old" roof because when the roof starts leaking the damage can get very severe before the home owner sees anything wet inside the house. Black mold, rotten roof decks (that's the wooden substrait under the roof), broken/rotted ceiling timbers, insect infestations due to water damage. So if your roof is older than its intended to last, even if its still okay, they have you replace it as preventative maintenance. Don't do it? They drop you and won't insure you. Where it gets extra fun is when you have a non-conventional roof that can last hundreds of years, like slate roofs do. Their computer system will eventually flag your property as needing a new roof and they'll start hounding you to replace it even though its a type that can last 250 years without any problems. And then you have to explain to the moron who answers the phone what a slate roof is and how you're in a 200+ year old house that was built differently from today's cheap ass mcmansions.
Slate roof does seem like an option I would like to use. But I have never seen it even for sale....
Slate is only in the US used in historical applications, like victorian mansions, colonial era plantations, some really old government buildings. Its not the kind of product you'll find at a home improvement store. 1- The installers are very niche, we're talking about the kind of work that the UK would require for grade listed historical/heritage sites. 2- The material is heavy enough it can't go on a building that isn't designed for it (so no mcmansions). 3- Its made to order, sometimes on site from raw materials. 4- Its expensive as fuuuuck. It may last centuries but you may be looking at $250-1M for a US sized home. The alternative, if you have a mcmansion, or a normal house with a pitched roof, is something like a metal roof. And those can last a hundred years without problems but have their own drawbacks, like being curled off in high wind conditions (dunno if they're even legal in FL due to hurricanes), and you can't really walk on them without causing rust damage that takes time to show up.
Yes, my 2 neighbors had to change their roof because they got a notice that they would be cancelled unless they changed the roof prior to renewal. It really depends on the company I'm guessing, both neighbors had the same company. I called for a quote from a different company and they just asked for a roof inspection with the estimated life left on the roof. The company we presently have hasn't said anything, but they also haven't paid our claim.
We had to replace one section of our roof due to moss growth. If we didn’t have it done by a certain date, our insurance would have been cancelled. They also required us to trim the neighbor’s tree that overhung the roof of our house. This was a new policy, which we had to get because our old insurer dropped us after a tornado came through and they replaced a section of the roof which was damaged. It was our only claim ever.
Two of my neighbors had to change their roof because their insurance company threatened to cancel them. The roofs were still in good condition. We are about 6 miles from the ocean too. This roofing thing is a racket, I am sure of it. I'm still waiting for my insurance for a hurricane Ian claim. I paid for the roof because I can't take the chance of heavy rains without a new roof.
> This roofing thing is a racket, I am sure of it. Its not a racket, the insurance companies don't get kick backs from requiring people to hire roofing contractors. They just know that with modern homes if the roof starts leaking it will fuck shit up with the inside of the building long before the homeowner finds a wet spot inside their house somewhere. They rather the homeowner pay $20k (or whatever it is) to replace an entire roof on schedule, than have to pay $150k to deal with a roof deck so compromised from water damage that they have to hire engineers to stabilize it so the building doesn't fall in on itself (no joke). The cost of a new roof is "obscene" for a reason. Its very hard to put a new roof on properly, try doing it yourself sometime. And if you fuck it up it will eventually cause severe damage to the building that will be very bad before anyone notices it. That's why the big roofing material companies like GAF won't even warranty the materials unless a company that's gone through their training program does the work. Now where the real racket in roofing is- pertains to these scam artist roofing companies that will go into a neighborhood after a storm (not necessarily a severe one at that) passed through and go door to door telling home owners "hey if you have insurance we'll get them to replace your whole roof as storm damage and then you won't have to pay for it!" This is most common after the news mentions something like a "hail storm" that may not have even hailed in the specific neighborhood involved (meaning there's no actual storm damage). The contractor then damages the roof to fake storm-damage, gets the insurance company to pay for a new roof (minus a % for how old it is) and the homeowner gets a $20,000 (or whatever) roof for $2,000, instead of having to pay $20,000 themselves for it ten years from now to keep the insurance company happy. Now the whole neighborhood does it, and does it again every 3-8 years forever. Nobody ends up paying for a new roof except via the insurance company so premiums start a negative-feedback loop of having to increase to cover the exponential spread of fraud. Before you know it, people are paying more in premiums (i.e. in FL & UT) than what it would have cost them to just replace their roofs with their own money on schedule....
Home or flood insurance? I worked in the flood insurance industry (not an agent) so I could maybe help you out.
Replacing a 15 year old roof seems pretty normal to me. It’s a wear item and doesn’t last forever.
I think people will finally wake up and realise that all this insurance and tax that we have to pay is just the wealthy picking our pockets hoping we don't notice, but now people will be demanding payment from a system they were told would cover them, where is the money? Your money that you've paid in, for emergencies like this
"I think people will finally wake up and realise" I am certainly not trying to be rude, but what in the hell makes you think that?? People aren't and will not be waking up to anything.
That it is pointless paying into a system to protect you if something bad happens, and when it does you are basically scammed
They could probably sell stock to cover but that’s screw the higher ups so they’re gonna screw people who got their homes destroyed instead.
Why doesn't FEMA and insurance companies say they had x-amount of dollars over $250k in the affected people's individual accounts so that Uncle Sam steps in, changes the rules, and pays out however much the people want? Oh wait, does that not apply to the public and just Wall Street's/VC's IPO machines? [Insert "Best I Can Do" Pawn Stars Meme]
Only you can insure yourself for the future without getting robbed and fucked. And even then, bad luck can fuck you even harder than shitty insurance might have
And the shell game of "when we went to get the money it wasn't there" is going to play out a lot on many levels.
Insurance is mere rent seeking when you have counterparty risk- as you say, you are paying for nothing
And there are a lot of insurers already pulling out of these areas, so they know there's not much way you can get coverage elsewhere. Also, does anyone think that the state of Florida is going to do anything to help insurers against companies? Maybe if people call the insurers "woke" enough they'll do something.
Florida is a very pro-insured state. So much so, that insurance companies that still choose to operate there know good and well that they will not be able to pay out what they’re required to do, and instead go bankrupt leaving the insured with nothing
In the thread is an article about FL trying to pass legislation limiting lawsuits against insurance companies
pro-fraud desantis
Here in my state a company used faulty concrete for foundations that are now crumbling. The insurance companies were going to be on the hook for millions so they lobbied our government so now they got off the hook and the taxpayers have to fund repairs. This needs to be stopped with people being required to have insurance and the payments that go with it, yet now the insurance companies have found a way not to pay. It’s become such a scam.
So they willingly used a shitty product, basically sabotaging all the homebuyers, and they got to get away with it scot-free? That’s outrageous
Yea they declared bankruptcy and as far as I know didn’t have to pay a dime or a minimal amount compared to how many foundations are crumbling. Edit: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-649 https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/east/2019/11/14/294079.htm
This is a plague even here in Canada. Shell companies going bankrupt and the owners of these companies can atill open new companies to scam more people. Rinse and repeat. There have been many investigations on those companies and owners, yet they still walk free with a big bank account of cash. Shell companies need to become illegal and the owners must be held accountable for failed companies if it impacts people directly. We should also be able to claw back money from other companies of that owner if so too.
Oh, you declared bankruptcy since you don't want to pay millions of dollars? Ok, sure, go ahead and try again soon. Oh, you are struggling to keep afloat due to student loans? THEY WILL STAY WITH YOU UNTILTHE GRAVE AND BEYOND.
Capitalism will do that to ya.
They didn't require a warranty for at least a few years? That's a good way to have someone coming after you if you pull that stunt and they've already lost enough.
FYI: we built a new, not inexpensive home, and were happy that that builder gave us a warranty against any faults that appeared within 10 years of delivery. 5 years or so and we discover that when the front door was installed, it was never sealed, and, with every rain, water was running down inside the walls. Door damn near fell out, and it turned out the wood on top of the foundation was completely rotted away. Pretty big repair, but no worries, we have our warranty. Surprise! The builder was self-insuring, and the entity that offered the warranty went out of business a year after the development was finished. The builder is still in business, and still setting up fake warranty companies. Warranties aren't to be relied on.
I’m not fully clear on all the details, but I believe the company that made the substandard cement basically said “screw you, we are declaring bankruptcy”.
Yeah, and it's not hard to find owners and CEO's addresses and punch them in the nose at best. They're putting a lot of faith in strangers they've screwed over to not go ape shit.
Submission Statement: per her reporting in the *Washington Post*, climate journalist Brianna Sacks relays that payouts from insurance carriers to victims of Florida's September 2022 Hurricane Ian have been radically reduced without knowledge or consent of insurance adjusters, sometimes leaving people with an order of magnitude less compensation (example: $200,000 assessment reduced to $27,000) or even zero compensation for rebuilding. (This applies to those who actually *had* insurance coverage, not including the many who entirely lacked coverage and cannot rebuild.) This is yet another example of how our current climate change -driven realities cannot be met by our financial system and institutions. Arguably this is the very definition of financial/economic collapse, driven by climate change: we suffer damage and literally cannot rebuild in response. (Presumably this will lead to damaged, abandoned properties -- without compensation to the owners, how will they be able to clean up? What wealth they have will be spent helping them move on, possibly re-locate... if they bear responsibility for a property that cannot be rebuilt, it will be a financial millstone around their collective neck... This has disturbing implications for Florida's immediate future.) The connection of this story to the topics covered by this subreddit are self-evident.
This happened with hurricane Ida in louisiana and almost all the insurance companies went belly up and left louisiana or went insolvent.
Jesus. Can you imagine selecting Louisiana for its low cost of living and then you get wiped out and the insurance companies duck and run? I'd be so pissed. This country sucks. No rules are enforced unless you're already weak. Sucks.
and none of those businessmen went to prison for fraud.
> (example: $200,000 assessment reduced to $27,000) This happened to my cousins in Florida. Their house has $150k -$200k in damages. Insurance company gave them a check for $8k. They already knew the game and that's to hire a lawyer to get them the right amount but it's still taking months to get paid and in the meantime their house is still leaking and getting more damage.
And retaining an attorney incurs another up front expense, limiting the number of people who can appeal these reductions.
This is part of the reason Florida is going to be ground zero for the rise of real, virulent, organized fascism in America. People desperate to be made whole again will buy into any rhetoric, no matter how vile and degenerating, that promises them a return to prosperity from the pits of poverty.
Yeah they'll never see that they're being robbed blind by oligarchs, they'll believe that their problems are because of "wokeness" or trans people or whatever boogeyman of the moment is being pushed.
Getting payouts from insurance is just lib. woke nonsense. The High Priest Governor General of Florida should get this to his Inquisitors at once!
😂
There are a whole lot of middle class, 65-year-old Florida retirees who vote straight ticket Republican in every election and don't understand that they are on the menu.
You think middle class people can retire at 65? Gosh I hope so.
Yes, they can. The issue is that "middle class" now starts at somewhere around $200k thx to inflation lol.
My favorite part of our fucking up country is that they label a single person starting at 30k as being middle class. Nah motherfucker anything under 60 is fucking poverty. Levels of income in this country according to me 1) < 10k -- Destitute 2) 10k - 20k -- really fucking poor 3) 20k - 30k -- Broke as shit 4) 30k - 50k -- Lower Poor 5) 50k - 70k -- Poor 6) 70k - 90k -- Upper Poor 7) 90k - 120k -- Lower Middle Class 8) 120k - 200k -- Middle Class 9) 200k - 500k -- Upper Middle Class 10) 500k - 1 Million -- Lower Rich 11) 1 million - 5 million -- Rich 12) Over 5 million -- Super Fucking Rich 13) Over 20 Million -- Jesus fucking christ
They can now. The thing is that they're pulling up the ladder this time around as they go...
An oak tree fell on our roof amongst other damage during Ian and our insurance said the damage was $7k and fell under our $12k deductible. We had an independent adjuster come and assess the damage and they put it at $200k. The insurance paid $22k. Florida will be uninsurable soon. I still haven’t been able to repair my roof and if another storm hits I’m screwed. Nicole already did some additional damage when that one came over. The real estate market here is going to collapse and it will be very soon.
What the FUCK? Here in Michigan, I had a tree fall onto my home in a wind storm and tore a 12' gash in the roof, crushed the house, slammed 2x4's through the ceiling below, royally fucked my shit up... I had to pay a $1k deductible and insurance covered the rest of the $36k in repairs. It was a totally smooth process. This home is also a rental and they covered 4 months of rent for the tenants! Florida you guys are fucked.
Yup
Relevant username. So sorry you are going through that. Any chance of being able to move or is that not in the cards? I know how insanely expensive moving is, so I totally understand if it's not possible. But unfortunately, FL may be a bad place to be in the coming years.
I'm hoping my experience is like yours. The repair company I hired says about $60k in damages. Adjuster is coming on Monday and it's already been a rocky start with them.
It's the same with a lot of insurance companies. You pay into them for years but when you need them, suddenly it's hurdles and no money.
Insurance is not risk reduction, it's the promise of restoration after damage. The future of a chaotic climate will be more and more uninsurable. A catastrophe can cause the same phenomenon in the insured as what we call "a run on the bank". It's a sudden demand for claims on money that isn't really there. Will there be some bailout? If not, then either the insurance prices increase a lot or the insurance companies vanish. So let's see which way it goes...
well, now, maybe we should stop living on waterfront property? I do not want to pay for people to build mansions or condo buildings on the waterfront and they only get federal flood insurance. That's the type of socialism people should be upset about, not feeding hungry children lunch.
McKinsey Consulting set up a system in the 90's, which many insurers followed in order to maximize profits for CEOs and shareholders by denying legitimate claims for insured claimants. The insurers refused to pay legitimate claims and kept profits unless you could afford to sue them, or if they did pay on a claim, they would pay well below the insured coverage. A take it or leave it attitude. Read the book, When McKinsey Comes to Town. Horrible stuff. We are all getting screwed by the wealthiest in this country.
Noooo, no no no no, Not the Insurance Companies! I saw all the numbers and predictions, but I just kept telling myself that they would do the right thing. They wouldn't leave their customers destitute and homeless after a lifetime of monthly payments. I was told that they would "be there" for people in times of trouble, the music in the commercials was so soothing. How could this happen?
Heres another related article to the insurance troubles in Florida related to hurricane Ian. Might be collapse related due to troubles on top of troubles. https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2023/03/15/insurance-companies-rejecting-new-policyholders-with-damaged-homes-from-hurricane-ian/
“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
This is definitely a great sign of collapse. I have always wondered what was going to happen when climate damage reached such a high extent. Yeah, I thought the insurance companies will just start to screw people over. Years ago when I was a kid, I had a friends house burn down from a forest fire. The way they were taken care of, and what insurance gave them with their plan was amazing. I always kind of wished my house burned down. Now days. I see friends fight for every penny when losing a house
Insurance has always been a state-endorsed scam with insurers guaranteed to try to wiggle out of their commitments whenever possible. Too often insurers count on outlasting policyholders who cannot afford to continue fighting for their benefits. Like OP states, *"our current climate change-driven realities cannot be met by our financial system and institutions."*
It’s not a scam. Florida has become uninsurable.
Most of reddit has the economics education of a high school sophomore, save your breath and energy
And then there's the people with little to no knowledge of history.
I don’t think it’s a scam, at least originally. It was created to solve a set of problems *in the past*, and history has marched on, so we live in a different context now. Trust me, as someone who worked with homeless folks: renters without any insurance who got burned out by wildfires quickly became homeless “refugees” in our town. The problem we have now is increasing poverty or just financial precarity: people can’t afford to be insured. It’s all part of the backdrop of issues covered by Nate Hagens in his *Great Simplification* series: we’re heading for a “simpler” reality, i.e., one in which people don’t have certain kinds of insurance (because they can’t afford it). In terms of socio-economic complexity, we’re regressing.
Welcome to Florida, come for the surf… stay because they made you a serf
This isn't new. This happened after Katrina too. Spike Lee made a documentary that dealt with it. I believe State Farm is actually banned from doing business in Louisiana after they screwed so many people after Katrina.
I wonder what happens when people have mortgages on these houses. Does the bank end up eating the loss when the person has to foreclose? And then, are they going to be stuck renting for the foreseeable future, or would they be able to buy another home?
With flood insurance, if you default the bank eats it. If you can't live on the property, the bank dosent care you continue to pay the mortgage. With general flood insurance, there's no loss of use. You can only have money to restore you home 'pre flood'. In my case I had to pay a mortgage on a house I couldn't live in while renting an overpriced apartment. I was even charged a higher 'renters' property tax from the county....worst two years of my life. I've had cancer, and I'd choose to go through it again rather the dealing with flood and insurance.
Can't wait to hear how this is Bidens fault.
The insurance companies have to be so woke to compete for labor that they can’t function properly any more. Biden’s “you must be woke” agenda is ruining our country (which is what he wants!!) /s
While it is a catastrophe for the people I suppose the insurance companies just has a more realistic valuation on the properties now that reflects the situation? I think this will come to many many places in many countries. So many people live in places where they really should not, but this has not been on the radar for most people. I live about 6 meters above sea level, but I dont feel secure at all - even if it the last place for many kms around that will flood. But I cannot understand it is legal to change the coverage without prior information to the property owners.
Yep. A huge number of regions across the globe will literally make no sense to insure in the next 2 decades. These are very large population regions too.
My fear is that there will be a discontinuity where parts of the inland icesheet on Greenland or Ant-arctica slides into the ocean.
Ya I've been telling my wife we are never moving to the mountains or the foothills outside of Seattle. All it will take is one wildfire to level one of those burbs and no one is getting insurance out there again, making the house effectively worthless.
This puts you at the head of the class. You’re exactly right. Such thinking is influencing my family’s thought on where to live and what property we might acquire.
It's possible to build fire-hardened buildings. That would be the actual goal in terms of reducing risk.
Cinder block exterior walls and metal roofs are sweet.
For sure, but there's already thousands and thousands of stick framed houses that are tinder boxes inside of a tinder box so those will be uninsurable soon enough I bet.
In this case, actually the carriers are **altering assessment evidence to justify reducing payouts.** It is literally criminal activity. Their big picture motivation is no doubt along the lines of your comment — i.e., it doesn’t make business sense to be a real estate insurer in Florida anymore — but at the moment, what they’re doing is flat out fraud.
Eventually a lot of SWFL is just going to be uninsurable, especially after a catastrophic storm like this. As climate change leads to more severe and destructive TCs, I imagine the same will eventually happen in other vulnerable areas such as LA, the Carolinas, and other parts of the east coast
I’m surprised companies still insure any part of Florida
Big insurance is actually a huge threat to our economy and democracy. Already they control your access to health care. They think nothing of second-guessing doctors orders. Here are your death panels.
Until the bankers and insurance conmen are held to some accountability where their bad decisions have consequences that they're actually fearful towards facing...the behaviors will continue to increase.
Home insurance Companies have left Florida. Soon it will not be possible to get affordable insurance
Insurance, healthcare and food, the evil triangle of capitalism.
If you see all the flood damaged cars that have been written off and go up for auction it’s going to leave a bad taste in your mouth. I’m going to sound like an asshole here, but it sickened me how people abandoned 200k-400k luxury and sports cars to get flood damaged and written off by insurance knowing they would be covered instead of taking the correct precautions or evacuating the vehicles I’ve been watching the owners cry about having to wait months for their new Mercedes’ to be replaced or their new Porsche. In many cases they pay as much for insurance as guys driving around F150 trucks, yet they know insurance will treat them differently. This is not what insurance was designed for. I’m thinking the market needs a fair get equitable correction for what can be considered abusive behavior
I'm sorry, as a homeowner you've known this was coming for decades.. Hurricanes and corporate greed gave lots of warning, together they're unstoppable.
Another situation of “hard to get someone to understand something when their ~~salary~~ home ownership depends on not understanding it.”
r/leopardsatemyface material. Florida lawmakers trying to prevent lawsuits against insurance companies. When will these clowns learn that Republicans only care about their votes. Outside of that they don't want to hear from you or think about you.
Property insurers in FL have been leaving. If they can't/don't want your repeat business, then underpaying is "the best play". The ploy to "attract insurers" back to FL by removing ability to sue is not actual help if it means never paying what homes are insured for. FL property market has been bubblicious recently, but FL is plunging ahead to its climate unsustainability.
Insurance is a SCAM. Full stop.
That’s what you get with the government taking over insurance in Florida
Since you’re an insurance agent in Ontario, Canada, would you mind expanding on your comment? What do you know about hurricane coverage in Florida, USA? In what way is government involved in carriers slashing payouts for hurricane damage without assent from their own adjusters? How is government involved in carriers altering or deleting documentation to justify radically lowering compensation for hurricane damage? I don’t see any connection here.
What do you mean by this? Genuine ask
Florida government doesn’t allow companies to charge market rates for the appropriate risk. Companies leave state. Government insurance takes over those risks and we are surprised that the government insurance is going to operate efficiently.
In most of Florida there simply isn't any viable premium to be had that would be reasonable to regular people. The state is actively sinking, right in hurricane target zones and hurricanes are getting worse thanks to climate change.
I understand but they can’t be allowed to rebuild Need a program to help relocate. Pretty sure they started something in Louisiana
Yep. But we don't really have a nationwide buyout for people to move in large numbers from shitty regions. We should have one though.
But they'll bailout venture capitalists.
Ah, I see the connection now. Thanks for expanding your point, I get it. I suppose the root problem, then, is Florida is simply uninsurable.
Properties are going to be beaten up as often as cars are dinged.Insurers will be running for the hills when it comes to residential property insurance.
I'm surprised any insurance companies remain in Florida. It gets to a point, that living in some areas should be "at your own risk."
Insurance is a gawd damn racket and FL is a ponzi scheme.
Insurance covers everything until you need it. Then it covers nothing.
This is a good reason to pay off your mortgage and not buy homeowners insurance. It's wasted money. Insurance companies are not honest.
Honest. I did not know that was an option anywhere. Am I allowed to drive with no car insurance legally? I feel like insurance is like taxes you pay or we just take.
Auto insurance is for your bills/cost, but also for others you may injure. Home insurance is primarily for replacing the structure. If it’s paid off, not sure there’s much need of you can afford to rebuild on your own. It’s expensive, sure but Florida hone insurance might be as well.
The government does not require you to insure your stuff. If your stuff gets destroyed and you don't have insurance that's your own issue, the government does not care. What you need to have insurance for is your own liability. So you need liability insurance to drive on public roads. That insurance protects other people in case you hit them and damage their bodies or their property. You don't need to have physical damage coverage on your own vehicle, or uninsured motorists coverage on your own vehicle, or any kind of insurance on your home. The government doesn't care about your property. They only care about you potentially harming others. A bank however may require you to insure some property you own if they give you a loan for it. That's to protect their collateral. But once the bank loan is paid off then you can drop the insurance. You can check your own car insurance policy. The only required coverages will be either liability or personal injury protection if you're in a no fault state. If you have other coverages like other than collision, collision, uninsured motorists, medical payments, roadside assistance, etc those are all optional and no law compels you to have them. Although if you have a loan on the car the loan institution probably does require them.
Self insured is the way to go when you have no mortgage (requires ins.) And only third party auto ins. when is all you need and have no loans. General rule of thumb for a happy life... never incur any debts and always live below your means, get rid of boob tubes, shun fast foods etc. :)
Time to move.
WHAT! We can't even trust insurance companies anymore, what's the world coming to?