After a $14B Upgrade, New Orleans’ Levees Are Sinking

Re:After a $14B Upgrade, New Orleans’ Levees Are Sinking by PopeDotNinja on Thursday April 18, 2019 @10:55PM (#19696731)

I used to sell insurance, including homeowners. As part of selling a homeowners policy, I was supposed to ensure that a home was not ridiculously vulnerable to catching fire. An example would be making sure the owner hadn't stuffed the house full of canisters of gasoline, or that the exterior of the house wasn't in direct contact with an abundance of dry vegetation.

Any insurance company that is willing to be represented by agents too lazy too verify a home is a fire waiting to happen is gonna lose money big time. It seems the logical approach to handling house in a wildfire prone area orvavflood plain would be to simply charge stupid high rates or not offer the insurance at all.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:After a $14B Upgrade, New Orleans’ Levees Are Sinking by goodcanadian on Friday April 19, 2019 @02:47AM (#19697575)

It seems the logical approach to handling house in a wildfire prone area orvavflood plain would be to simply charge stupid high rates or not offer the insurance at all.

Which is exactly what insurance companies do. It is usually very difficult to get flood insurance in a flood plain. Rather than taking that as a clue that people shouldn't live there, all too often, the government steps in to subsidise the risk. I don't want to over simplify, things are complicated and sometimes it is appropriate to subsidise such risk, but sometimes it is not.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:After a $14B Upgrade, New Orleans’ Levees Are Sinking by lotsofpulp on Friday April 19, 2019 @04:01AM (#19697833)

Private companies don’t offer flood insurance in those areas, that cost is spread around federal taxpayers via the Nationals Flood Insurance Program.

[ Parent | on HN ]