This is why insurance should be nationalized as part of your taxes.
Anyone thats not a brainwashed rightwing lunatic would see that paying 100-300 dollars a year on taxes would be a hell of a lot better than 100+ dollars a month just to buy a CEO a golden parachute and another yacht
But as long as right wing lunatics are out there literally hunting aid workers and evaluators, its never gonna happen… because they want misery, pain, and destruction. its why Project 2025 wants to get rid of all of it.
I agree with nationalized healthcare insurance, but I don’t know if I agree with using taxes to fund an underwriting account for houses in Florida that are guaranteed to get destroyed year after year.
Hurricanes are not getting smaller. Continuing to rebuild in Florida seems like building in the shadow of a smoking volcano.
Insurance can still payout and people can still be made whole for property that’s deemed uninhabitable. You do not have to “continue to rebuild in Florida”, but you can make sure people’s lives aren’t completely ruined as a result of natural disasters.
Go a bit deeper. Everywhere is fucked. Nowhere will be insurable soon. Now what? Maybe we should get serious about degrowth and climate change instead
So just stop helping people in florida specifically?
Or we just gonna go full republican hatemonger and tell everyine from California earthquakes, To Midwestern Tornados, to Northern Blizzards, and more, to just get bent and that they should have thought to live somewhere without regular disasters? That they deserve what happens to them for “choosing” to live there?
My insurance company has determined that my house would cost about $450k to completely rebuild in the event of a total loss. Thankfully in the Northeast the risk of my house being destroyed is low, so they charge me $1,100 annually. Even with a few houses in my area being destroyed by fire, flood, or extreme weather, they still make enough to build up their reserves, pay their employees, and kick back some to the investors.
How much would that company need to charge in Florida so they could still pay to fix the houses and pay everybody that works for them? Definitely not $1,100/yr because replacing just a single broken window costs $1,100.
Now think about if the Federal government began covering Florida. They would have the same issue as private insurers - there is no amount they can charge that will not deplete their funds faster than they take in premiums.
Even making it a state plan would work better in Florida than what we currently have. They let private insurers cherry pick the less risky houses, and cover whoever is left with the state plan. Then those private for profit insurers take the premiums, pay big bonuses to themselves, dissolve the company and leave, rinse and repeat. It’s a scam.
The cherry picking is usually a compromise to keep the companies operating in the state at all. If the state says a company must offer coverage for all perils for the entire state or leave entirely, it doesn’t take an underwriter to know Florida is a bad bet. There are similar carve outs for windstorm coverage in other gulf coast states, and I think for wildfire coverage on the west coast.
Edit: I couldn’t find anything about a single peril state plan for California, but this article describes some of the recent insurance issues in the state: https://apnews.com/article/california-home-insurance-wildfire-risk-premiums-047bdfa514ce93dac83c82735a15554a
The “California Earthquake Authority” provides the earthquake insurance for California: https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/about-cea/frequently-asked-questions
I had not realized before reading that now that it’s actually not state-funded. It sounds like it’s a pool of all insurers together.
Florida is talking about a state windstorm pool (risk pooling, not gambling pool) like the national flood insurance. I guess that would be the compromise, but the insurance industry here really is plagued with fraud. The companies keep folding then coming back, I can only assume they are lining the pockets of the legislature with our money.
In the years I’ve owned a house (about 30) I have paid them enough that if I’d banked it instead at a reasonable rate of return I could buy another house. But have made no claims. So they are charging like every house will be knocked down once every 30 years, I guess, but again, my previous house and that whole neighborhood from 1925 is still standing.
Believe me, I’m with you. But a complication to this is that insurance companies employ millions of people. Nationalizing them needs to take all those livelihoods into account, and would be nearly impossible without going full on socialist (which I am completely for, I don’t think it’s feasible to continue a capitalist system when it is clearly breaking down and killing the planet while doing so.)
Flood insurance is nationally subsidized. People use it to afford their marina properties in Washington state.
Why should taxpayers subsidize someone’s dumb decision to buy a Florida beach house?
“Why should I have to pay for YOUR kids to go to school?”
“Why should I pay for social safety nets when I’m well off?”
“Why should I pay for roads when I don’t drive?”
Because there will come a day where you may need the help, and it wont be there cause your pigheaded myopia, and then you’ll cry and cry about the unfairness of it all and maybe, just maybe, if you have a functioning neuron in that brain of yours, that maybe the fraction of a cent of yours that actually goes to help people isnt such a bad thing afterall
Edit: I see now the comment I replied to is about subsidizing losses, not about having a state run insurance program.
If the premiums are risk based, why not not? Ideally there would also be a buyback program for homes deemed to be uninhabitable due to climate risk. Maybe something like the state will buy the house at 80% of the value used for property taxes, up to a certain maximum (fixed dollar amount? Percentage over the county/state median?) This buyback program could be used when the premiums become unaffordable.
Until you get hit by a natural disaster, then it’s different?
Of course you need a evaluation if the damage should be replaced and how the owner could have avoided some damages… that is how insurances work.
Don’t build zou house close to a wildfire spot. Don’t buy property in a Hurricane path…
Thing is: This shit will happen everywhere anytime.
