The company would have to be huge to pull it off. One event like what happened in Houston could easily wipe out a big chunk of any fund they could amass. That kind of diversity could also be a problem if there are shared waterways, think back to the Mississippi/Missouri flood from 1993. I'm seeing 15 billion as the damages there, which is a large percentage of the "cash" pile Apple is claimed to have.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1993

Edit: fix an extraneous wording mistake.

What does this have to do with Apple? Is that just a reference to them hoarding large amounts of cash or are they in the reinsurance business?

I believe it's a reference to the fact that even large companies, Apple is $800b, don't have all that cash on hand. To convert $15b into cash takes time. Disaster victims can't exactly pay for hotels or buy foods with bonds or stock certificates.

btw, Apple has far more than $15 billion in its cash pile. it's over $250 billion by some accounts

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02/apples-cash-hoard-swells-to-...

I was using them as an example of a large company that would be reasonably familiar to the audience here.