> Instead the government should require you have insurance to pay damages to third parties incase a fire/collapse/flood happens caused by your property.
I don't want any F*ing insurance requirements.
our failure is in trying to pawn off all responsibility to remote agencies and institutions, raher than the parts best-suited for them (bureaucracies are reasonably good at following rules and doing the same thing over and over), and accepting that we can't each absolve ourselves from some of that responsibility.
we want some best-suited regulation, the minimum needed to achieve reasonable safety, and no less, but also no more. regulation isn't good for every tiny tail risk we can imagine, as we see with the housing crisis (in major cities).
A key difference in this bureaucracy is their speed of change. Companies can react rapidly to new technology, new scenarios, and they do so on an economic model.
Gov'ts move slowly and lag technology or current events, they do so on a popularity/political power model.
bigger governments create more rent opportunities.
https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/introduction-rent-seekin...
Additionally- companies can react intentionally slowly to squander and choke new technologies and scenarios, also doing so on an economic model.
If the government requires an unnecessarily burdensome design, you're screwed.
If they do so then said technologies were not real opportunities. If they're opportunities then competitors will generate more value and/or less cost.
No amount of compensation can bring someone back if they've been lost to a fire, a deck collapse, a sinkhole, an electrical issue, etc.
The use of lead paint causes irreversible damage to nervous tissue, and lead contamination can lie undetected in soils for years after a property removes all the lead from the buildings.
Why would we want to invest a massive amount of effort into figuring out, e.g., the actual insurance risk of poorly built structures rather than saying, "No, you cannot use highly flammable plastic cladding on your highrise."
Especially if insurance companies can go bankrupt or refuse to pay out. How do victims get made well if the insurance company refuses to pay on some technicality? The last thing I want to deal with is more insurance companies.
Wouldn't the insurance company say the same thing? Or rather they would say "we won't insure that thing". Which amounts to "You cannot build that thing if insurance is a requirement".
Who are those insurers beholden to, what are their incentives to represent the consumer in any way?
Some people would like to see more things like that.
Their incentives to represent the consumer are rooted in the fact that the consumer can switch to another insurance company. Which means that if one has overly strict requirements without charging correspondingly lower premiums, nobody will use them. Then you get the incentives you want: People prefer both lax requirements and low premiums and the insurance companies have the incentive to find a better balance than competing insurance companies.
Two follow ups:
1) Isn't this inefficient? E.g. insurance is most efficient the larger the pool is. Doesn't this system introduce inefficiencies (and therefore risk) into the market?
2) Do you feel like there are adequate tools to choose between different insurers today, and do you expect that everyone who owns or improves property should be reasonably expected to make an informed decision about which insurance company to go with? It's hard enough now to insure my car, let alone all the individual decisions that go into building a house. (From materials to design decisions to occupancy rates to the health of the occupants, etc.)
Even these, IMO, are government overreach. Instead the government should require you have insurance to pay damages to third parties incase a fire/collapse/flood happens caused by your property. Then leave it up to the insurance company to decide what standards will lower your premium.
One insurance company might decide "look at Switzerland - they have very safe houses. Build everything to Swiss regulations, and we'll give you a 90% discount on the insurance price".
Over time, safety and environmental standards, as well as costs to meet them, will get much better much quicker than current layers of government bureaucracy.
The insurance should also cover for things like environmental spills on your land, the cost of pulling the building down and making the site nature again if the insurance is ever not renewed, etc.