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md5crypto ,

Is all of Florida a risk, or only down state?

danhasnolife ,

Insurance companies are about the purest form of capitalism around. If they aren’t making money, they aren’t going to participate. This is going to be a problem for California, Florida, Louisiana, and places in the Mountain West.

Mdotaut801 ,

Mountain west? Why? I don’t see anything particularly concerning in Utah but maybe I’m not paying enough attention?

InternetCitizen2 ,

I think the whole western half of the country is strained for water, so might have to do with that.

Mdotaut801 ,

Ah gotcha. Why would a drought increase my insurance premiums?

BeMoreCareful ,

It’s probably the fire

dan1101 ,
@dan1101@lemmy.world avatar

Even CBS does clickbait now. First sentence in article:

<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">AAA will not renew the auto and home insurance policies for some customers in Florida, joining a growing list of insurers dialing back their presence in the Sunshine State amid a growing risk of natural disasters.
</span>

Some customers. Will that be dozens, thousands, millions?

Corran1138 ,

I bet even they don’t know the specific number. But certain conditions like being in a hurricane-prone area or zones not performing the maintenance on structures that help deal with natural disasters would probably cause those people to no longer be insurable as it predictable that they would pay out more money to more people when things go sideways. This is information for their stockholders, so they don’t get sued for not maximizing profit.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever ,

Whoa now. That is some prejudiced and elitest reporting. How dare anyone acknowledge the problems in florida, the sunshine state that is perfect.

In all seriousness: It sounds like this is being a bit over reported, but the extent to which they are pulling out remains to be seen. And it is going to REALLY suck for florida as people are stuck holding mortgages for condemned and washed away houses.

But it also sets a really concerning precedent. California has already seen issues (but, being a functioning government, are setting up government programs to protect people from wildfires). But more and more of the country/world are going to become uninhabitable over the next few decades and insurance companies are likely to pull out of risky areas and just raise premiums elsewhere.

Odusei OP ,

I’d say Arizona and Texas are at higher risk than California, unless earthquakes get way more frequent and bad.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever ,

Texas is always at a high risk of someone plugging their phone charger into the wrong outlet and taking out the grid for the entire state. They are a special kind of stupid

Arizona is interesting. They definitely have massive drought issues. But wildfire wise, they tend to be pretty okay. I assume because there isn’t enough moisture to actually grow trees to burn but I am sure it is more complex than that.

Still, compare these

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Arizona_wildfires versus en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_California_wildfires

And, for fun, New Mexico: Like Arizona but with fewer people, worse roads, and a little bit more water. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_New_Mexico_wildfires

Odusei OP ,

Wildfires aren’t the issue with Arizona, extreme heat is.

Puzzle_Sluts_4Ever ,

Which isn’t something insurance covers and thus not applicable here.

You can’t (easily) file a claim because “it is hot as balls outside”. You can (generally) file a claim for “my house burned down”.

The planet becoming more and more inhospitable is one side of this hell. But the issue with insurance companies pulling out is that it leaves the owners holding the bag. The bag, in this case, being a massive mortgage on a condemned plot of land.

JustZ ,

“Hot as balls” raises workers’ comp. and health insurance payouts, people getting heat exhaustion and heat stroke, even heart and respiratory diseases can be brought on or worsened by heat.

dhorse ,

The risk in CA is that they have built so many communities in areas that are prone to wild fires (and in some cases are even part of the natural eco system) that is inevitable that if they rebuild that it will burn down again. They also have high material costs, higher labor costs, and more stringent building codes (rebuilding to code can get really expensive). Lastly CA has a more highly regulated insurance market which protects consumers, but makes it less profitable for insurance companies. While IMO this is a good thing it has ripple effects on whether or not the private market wants to participate.

cedarmesa , (edited )
@cedarmesa@lemmy.world avatar

💀

Lifecoach5000 ,

What are you doing on the internet? You’re supposed to STOP, DROP & ROLL!!!

In all seriousness, I hope you are well and surviving.

InternetCitizen2 ,

florida as people are stuck holding mortgages for condemned and washed away houses.

I mean what is the issue with just not paying them? For a big enough hurricane there will be too many delinquent mortgages, so it might be easy to hide or just tell the bank that the free market is harsh mistress and sucks their risk didn’t pay off.

teamevil ,

Take away their ability to offer car insurance in Florida too then.

ChunkMcHorkle , (edited )
@ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world avatar

deleted by creator

madcaesar ,

If only the gays would stop marrying the hurricanes would stop and premiums would be lower! - Florida republican voter, probably

acunasdaddy ,

It’s the fault of the trans athletes and books that use the word “gay”!

HeavenAndHell ,
@HeavenAndHell@lemmy.world avatar

Not probably, they have been on record saying so.

orphiebaby ,
@orphiebaby@lemmy.world avatar

Our Baptists in Illinois when I was a kid blamed 2000s hurricanes on “sin” such as gay marriage, so that’s correct.

(In case you are wondering, I am no longer Christian— let alone Baptist. I am agnostic theist though!)

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

If the hurricanes had guns this wouldn’t be happening.

Mog_fanatic ,

“Unfortunately, Florida’s insurance market has become challenging in recent years,” the company said in a statement emailed to CBS MoneyWatch. “Last year’s catastrophic hurricane season contributed to an unprecedented rise in reinsurance rates, making it more costly for insurance companies to operate.”

This is hilarious and sould crushingly unsurprising. People actually ended up needing to use the insurance the companies were offering soooo they are just no longer offering it. Proving once again (for the millionth time) insurance companies have absolutely zero desire or feel any moral obligation to actually help people. It is 100% purely a money making operation. The millisecond they actually have to help any of their customers out, they will bend over backwards to get out of it and if they can’t, they’ll just leave entirely and not insure you. Beautiful. God I hate insurance so much.

dragonfly4933 ,

Insurance doesn’t work very well for things like hurricanes. When big events happen that cause large percentages of their policy holders to file claims at the same time, it results in large payouts which causes increases in price. When prices go up, people don’t insure. This combined with the fact that florida gets hurricanes means prices for insurance are high.

Maybe the state could help by introducing laws to help combat insurance fraud, but that could lead to consumers getting fucked by their insurance companies.

clutchmatic ,

You are being downvoted unfairly. There is greed at play, but there is math and economics as well.

The state could also help by reviewing building codes and infrastructure to make the losses due to hurricanes less severe but, with Florida republican votes not understanding the benefits of government helping address externalities for the benefit of everyone, there’s no chance the situation will improve there…

TheDarkKnight ,

Most insurance companies strive to avoid excessive profits, honestly and aim for a combined ratio of something less than 5% profit. It’s a fairly competitive field, getting greedy results in losing policies and is very price reactive. Consumers can change pretty easily and do so regularly.

nednobbins ,

Insurance can work just fine for things like hurricanes. Insurance companies have several methods to address it. They’re all effectively variations of buying insurance policies themselves.

Re-insurance pools are a close analog. It’s basically a bunch of insurance companies from around the planet getting together and agreeing to pool risks. Big companies also use a bunch of funky financial instruments to simulate insurance.

There’s some risk of increased systemic correlation (eg climate change may increase the risk that major hurricanes hit multiple areas around the planet simultaneously). That’s largely mitigated in that we can see it coming. Climate change is pretty prominent in their models and they can adjust premiums or stop offering policies, over time.

The bigger risk is in synthetic systemic risk. It’s burned us a bunch of times already and it’s gonna do it again. Those giant global re-insurance pools are almost certainly fine, and worth the risk, if we just use them for their intended purpose. But history shows that we’ll end up creating derivatives contracts on them and those contracts will get leveraged. Those leveraged pools end up merging and turning into giant financial time bombs.

Treczoks ,

Are you actually surprised that an insurance company is not there for the good of the people, but to make money? They did keep their contractual obligations and paid out their customers, so you cannot fault them for that.

And what the insurance companies are doing is quite normal behavior. They analyze business risks and move out of fields that are not profitable. They are now telling you that they will no longer cover you so you can find another insurance to take over business. That those other insurance companies are more expensive is just founded in the fact that Florida is already a risky state, and the risks just skyrocket through global warming. And with the water temperatures rising as they do, I expect this year to have an interesting hurricane season.

People complain again that they cannot afford to move to safer places. Maybe now they can start thinking whether they can afford not to move to safer places instead.

FattestMattest ,

Not saying insurance companies are good but I’ve read a lot of the problem is with insurance scams where a roofing company will tell the homeowner they can replace their roof for free with insurance, even if it’s not necessary. Then that company will sue the insurance Co if they don’t pay for it.

JustZ ,

That’s part of it but it’s state law that made that possible, even with tort reform.

TechnoBabble ,

And if the state is going to legislate that way, there’s even more reason to pull coverage.

It’s half climate change related, and half their own doing.

SeaJ ,

If they think last year’s hurricane season was bad, wait until this year with 38°C (100°F) water.

Chekhovs_Gun ,

I thought hurricane season was over

marmo7ade ,

Insurance is for protection against a POSSIBLE eventuality. When the event moves from “this might happen” to “this will happen”, insurance is no longer appropriate. I have flood insurance because I live in an area where we don’t have floods. I do live in an area with a fuck ton of snow though. I can’t get insurance for that because I willingly accepted the risk when I bought a house in this geography.

You can’t buy a house you know will get hit by a hurricane and then expect to pay a couple bucks a month so you can get paid $500k later when the hurricane you know would come does come.

Insurance is for accidents. You want insurance to be something it is not.

TheDarkKnight , (edited )

They are a business and their business model shows they can’t make profit in Florida any longer. It would be morally unjustifiable to continue operating in Florida, to their employees and shareholders.

These aren’t non-profit companies.

outdated_belated ,

CA is also having some issues I believe, for partially related reasons

islandofcaucasus ,

So serious question, does the fact that insurance companies are giving up millions of potential customers prove that climate change/disaster is real?

stopthatgirl7 ,
@stopthatgirl7@kbin.social avatar

IIRC, that’s part of why they’re pulling out of Florida. DeSantis made it law that they can’t change premiums based on climate change, so they’ve decided it makes more sense for them to pull out than risk huge payouts when they can’t change premiums.

islandofcaucasus ,

Honestly I’m pretty sure a similar problem is happening in California.

Treczoks ,

Just look at the rising water temperatures. It will be an interesting hurricane season this year.

Angry_Maple ,
@Angry_Maple@sh.itjust.works avatar

No fucking kidding, eh?

I hope that the wind shear from the el Nino holds up for the people in the US and parts of Canada. It seems like the NOAA are thinking that this el Nino might not be as much of a saving grace as usual. The current temperatures are worse than they were at the peak of any other hurricaine season, and this one is still just getting started. I’m concerned with how bad the temperatures will be at the peak.

From what I read, we haven’t really experienced this before. This year’s sea temperatures are the hottest on record. We’re already getting to the point where things will become increasingly difficult to predict.

Buddahriffic ,

Wait, this El Nino was supposed to be a saving grace? I’ve only heard of it meaning hotter surface temperatures. Hot summers, mild winters are what I associate with El Nino, and the opposite with La Nina.

The things I’ve read have been saying that the last few years of La Nina have made the warning trend seem more mild and now this El Nino will show how much things have actually progressed in that time.

Angry_Maple ,
@Angry_Maple@sh.itjust.works avatar

I meant that mainly in terms of the hurricaine season. During an el Nino, the Pacific ocean begins to heat more than it normally would during a la Nina. This heat creates an undraft of sorts that pushes a lot of air towards the east. These updrafts can kind of “axe” a developing storm. They can obliterate a small hurricaine or tropical depression.

When the Atlantic ocean is hotter, the storms that come from it tend to be stronger. We have never had sea temperatures this high, so it’s a bit of a guessing game to whether or not those updrafts from the Pacific ocean will continue to “axe” storms coming in from the Atlantic. The gulf of Mexico is also pretty hot, and it lies on the other side of the jet streams that come from the Pacific updrafts.

We have to hope that a hurricaine doesn’t make it beyond that jet stream, as those water temperatures are currently perfect for a bad hurricaine.

Unfortunately, we don’t really have much data on these conditions yet, since we haven’t really seen them happen before. We will have to wait and see which of the opposing forces is stronger.

Buddahriffic ,

That’s pretty cool! I love it when I think I have a basic grasp on something and get smacked with more complexity. Earth is neat with all of these carefully balanced systems that just happen to keep it in habitable ranges. I’m glad humanity is doing everything it can to respect that and keep Earth going and not change things so drastically that we just blast past or through the check mechanisms!

Klear ,

I don’t think most of deniers deny the climate change is real, they moved the goalposts to “it’s not caused by humans” a while ago and I’m pretty sure they’re currently shifting them again to “it’s too late do anything anways”.

astanix ,

My grandfather told the family that his premiums are going up so much in September that he has decided to just sell his house and move to South Carolina. I don’t know what he was paying or how much they are increasing it but it must be bad if he’s moving after living there for 30+ years.

islandofcaucasus ,

Bummer that he sold everything just to move to another future climate casualty

kometes ,
@kometes@lemmy.world avatar

Worse: cnbc.com/…/these-are-americas-10-worst-states-to-…

Kwalla ,

Wonder how DeSantis or his successor will spin things when the only option left is to make a government run single payer system for anyone to have coverage.

diamonddozen ,

Unfortunately, Florida already has a socialized insurance "corporation", Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Tens of thousands of policy holders this year were forced to move to other insurance companies if those companies would offer them insurance for up to 20% higher than they would get with Citizens.

You can only get Citizens if you cant get insurance through any other provider. Citizens coverage requires you to get flood insurance regardless of if you're in a flood zone or not (arguably, this is smart for Florida, but does make insurance much more expensive), and the policy doesn't cover nearly as much as you would get with other insurance companies.

As more and more news articles come out about various home owners insurance companies leaving Florida we're seeing more companion articles about how Citizens is completely fucked up. To tl;dr some stuff, basically if Florida sees a bad hurricane and Citizens has to pay out, everyone who's on citizens is royally fucked because they just don't have the money to pay out.

I have all the confidence that if Florida lost all of the free market insurance and was forced to provide a socialized universal insurance scheme that Republicans would continue to run it as competently as they currently are.

somethingsnappy ,

And all of that is just lip service bullshit waiting for a government emergency declaration to bail them out. Again, and, again, and again

CmdrShepard ,

Yep they’ll ask for a bailout from the federal government, and when anyone brings up anything about the hypocrisy, the lack of private insurance companies, or the mismanagement of the state run insurance fund, they’ll respond with “How DARE you politicize a disaster such as this!” in their special, concern-trolling sort of way.

Buddahriffic ,

Sounds like it would be a good idea to defederate from Florida. Then they can say whatever they want in their own instance while everyone else carries on with their not Florida lives.

MisterD ,

Imagine if they did health insurance…

rusticus1773 ,

Can we see an article with which insurance is left? Will there only be smaller companies that just claim bankruptcy after the next hurricane and then Florida asks taxpayers to bail them out? Fuck that.

OldWoodFrame ,

All the insurance companies have insurance too (reinsurance) amd there is a state-run insurance company so it’s not big a deal that they’ll go out of business, it’s that costs are just rising ridiculously fast. They just passed a law full of legal changes the insurance companies wanted (like making it harder to sue insurance companies) just to keep costs rising at “only” 40% in a year.

Cqrd , (edited )

To apply for the state-run insurance it has to be 20% cheaper than any plan you can find with comparable coverage, and they can arbitrarily kick you off of it for no reason.

iamdisillusioned ,

Yes, exactly. I read an article that said Farmers Insurance is pulling away but will still do new business in Florida under some of their smaller subsidiaries.

fubo ,

Mr. DeSantis, why can’t the people of Florida get privately owned homeowners insurance from capitalist corporations?

Why does Florida suck at capitalism?

Is it because of climate change … or is it because fascism isn’t actually good for business, it just pretends to be, while assassinating the businesses it doesn’t like?

Could it be … BOTH?

Either way, you’re a piece of shit, Mr. DeSantis, and you can go to hell.

Cosmonauticus ,

I shit you not Florida’s CFO blames corporate wokeness

Also I didn’t know florida has a CFO

fubo ,

Running government like a business = bad at capitalism

MrMamiya ,

Running the government like a business sure sounded a lot better when businesses took care of their people, huh?

CmdrShepard ,

“Let’s run the government like a corporation. We’ll give people the worst quality product possible at the highest price possible!”

OldWoodFrame ,

It’s their Comptroller/ Treasurer but it just got merged in 2002 so it has a catchier name.

ShakyPerception ,

I mean, in their defense the insurance companies finally “woke” up to what a terrible business idea it is to operate in Florida.

CmdrShepard ,

Chief Florida Officer?

Gork ,

In charge of regulating Florida ounces.

whereisk ,

No worries, now the Florida government will offer their own insurance in retaliation, to show them corporates who’s boss.

And that’s how, children, the capitalists became socialists.

TenderfootGungi ,

They already do.

dynamojoe ,

It already exists. It’s called Citizens Property Insurance and I’m one of over a million subscribers to it. Every private company is at least 20% more expensive or the state could sell my policy to the private company.

CmdrShepard ,

Let me guess, the money goes to a private company who just happens to be run by a relative of DeSantis?

dynamojoe ,

Not exactly. Citizens has been around for a long time. If you want to find some of the usual GOP grift here in FL, take look at all DeSantis’ donors/college buddies/whatever that are now getting the legal work for defending the state against Disney’s lawsuits. That’s a lot of money…but that’s a separate issue from Citizens, which legitimately fills a need.

Parabola ,

Howdy fellow citizens customer! As a token of our new friendship id like to give you 2 of the giant grasshoppers and 1 albino lizard.

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