Current Events > Should the government step in for uninsured homeowners

(+) Yeah! (+)

Since many can't get or afford homeowner's insurance on the coasts, should the government (either state or federal) help cover costs to rebuild?

Unfortunately, I don't think rebuilding in the middle of disaster prone areas is a good long term strategy, particularly as it's only going to get worse in the future.

if you can't afford homeowner's insurance you can't afford coastal property

insurance companies are obviously smarter than most of Florida's government and residents, which is why they hiked rates up so much or pulled out of the state entirely

I don't know the answer but I dislike that my home owners insurance is rising to cover the costs of these other areas. Not just home owners insurance either. For the first time in many years my auto insurance had a significant jump this year just because everything insurance wise is skyrocketing.

My house and truck are completely paid for but when you account for insurance on both and fucking property taxes even when you completely own everything there is still a serious chunk of change going out of my pocket each year.

Don't build homes in uninhabitable areas. We should discourage coastline building. Kick people out of the desert while we're at it.

No. I do think they should give you a supplement to help with any immediate emergency costs, but private property is private property.

Ultimately the government should be helping the people. It shouldnt matter if someone is long term homeless or recently homeless, both should have some form of assistance to get accomodation etc

Naturally this accomodation shouldnt be in disaster prone areas, at least not anything designed to be long term. The goal should be to relocate to a safer location where there is long term accomodation built

archizzy posted...

I don't know the answer but I dislike that my home owners insurance is rising to cover the costs of these other areas. Not just home owners insurance either. For the first time in many years my auto insurance had a significant jump this year just because everything insurance wise is skyrocketing.

My house and truck are completely paid for but when you account for insurance on both and fucking property taxes even when you completely own everything there is still a serious chunk of change going out of my pocket each year.

Military spending is in the trillion. How would they afford their stuff if they didn't tax you for it?

Unless we're doing mass evacuations and abandoning coastal cities and their entire economies and culture (no more Houston, Miami, New Orleans, eventually even NYC) then someone with a lot of money is gonna have to do something.

The government already has programs to relocate people, but I don't think American society has had the conversation yet about how much that'll cost and how much upheaval is involved. It'll be trillions spent and tens of millions moving.

We either keep people where they are and pay or move people and pay, but there's no option not to pay.

archizzy posted...

I don't know the answer but I dislike that my home owners insurance is rising to cover the costs of these other areas.

I've thought about that, too. My insurance company is in every state, but I'd kind of rather they drop the expensive ones, to keep my rates lower.

Unfortunately I dont think some of these areas should have homes. They will just get destroyed by storms again.

tankboy posted...

I've thought about that, too. My insurance company is in every state, but I'd kind of rather they drop the expensive ones, to keep my rates lower.

hahaha

insurance companies are still corporations seeking to make a profit, just because their costs are lowered doesn't mean they'll lower your prices

We can do this the hard way, or the harder way

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/insurance-politics-at-the-end-of

Realize, though, that opening the pipeline of hundreds of billions of dollars of federal money to enable people to continue living as usual in these disaster-prone areas is to erase the only benefit of the free market insurance systemthe way that it forces rational adaptation climate change. For a shitty Florida Republican governor, just to take one example, the ideal political solution is I secured money for you to rebuild your garish beach house exactly where you had it and continue to live your tacky ass lifestyle just as before. As a long term solution, this is the worst of both worlds.

The rational capitalism solution here is: We accurately price your risk and that risk becomes unaffordable and people move away from areas that are stupid to live in and therefore climate adaptation is achieved. The rational socialism solution is: We collectively embrace the idea that we need to adapt to climate change and the federal government creates long-term programs that incentivize moving away from areas that are stupid to live in and disincentivize build as much crap in South Florida flood zones as you can now to take advantage of the real estate bubble and generally cushion the economic blow for all the people whose lives will have to change. The first solution is harsher and more direct, and the second is perhaps slower and more human, but both achieve the necessary climate adaptation.

The path we are on today, thoughthe path that our current political system makes likelyis the path of Wholly Irrational and Completely Ad-Hoc Pirate Capitalism: Increasing climate change-induced disasters cause panic among homeowners as a class; politicians rush to grab dollars to enable everyone to live the same as they are now for as long as possible; and eventually the whole thing crashes into the wall of reality in a way that causes uncontainable, national pain rather than just the specific, regional, temporary pain of the smarter solutions. This pain will probably come in the form of 1) enormous economic and human losses and 2) a political crisis that will occur when all of the people living in other states finally say, Why the fuck is so much of our federal budget going to protect these idiots beach houses? Then things will get ugly.