“Climate change could punch a hole through the financial system by making 30-year home mortgages — the lifeblood of the American housing market — effectively unobtainable in entire regions across parts of the U.S.”
“Climate change could end mortgages as we know them”
“Natural disasters are being recorded more frequently than ever before. “Since 1970, the number of disasters worldwide has more than quadrupled to around 400 a year,” and “there are six times more hydrological events now than in 1980,” The 10 Most Costly Natural Disasters of the Century
“There is a logistical hurdle: when a catastrophe bond experiences a so-called loss event, the capital in the investment is suspended until the full cost of a disaster is pinned down. The phenomenon of “loss creep”, where initial estimates of a loss balloon months or even years after the event, has also spooked some investors. The cost of Typhoon Jebi in Japan last year rose from initial expectations of $6bn to $15bn.”
“Over two years, natural catastrophes caused a record $225bn of insured losses”.
Why climate change is the new 9/11 for insurance companies
“For the insurance industry, global warming has advanced from a future ecological challenge to a present financial shock. Together, total losses to the economy from natural catastrophes and “man-made disasters” reached $165 billion in 2018; that followed a 2017 that, at $350 billion, cost more than twice as much. As a result, according to the Swiss Re Institute, the company’s research arm, 2017 and 2018 were for insurers the most-expensive two-year period of such catastrophes on record, requiring them to fork over $219 billion globally in checks.”
Climate Change Is Hitting the Insurance Industry Hard
“Regulators are starting to worry about climate change.”
“Jenkins points out that the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority is leading the way on stress-testing insurers against the risk that the world misses its carbon reduction targets.”
“In such a scenario, insurers, especially in the U.S. where price increases are restricted by regulators, may find it increasingly unattractive to offer coverage,” he writes. “Greater lay-off of risk to reinsurers is one option. But more restrictive policies or wholesale withdrawal of cover are also possible. At some juncture underwriters will need to remove their blinkers and acknowledge that a world awash with worsening climate change risks is not necessarily just bad for the planet. It could be bad for the insurance industry too. A bit like 9/11.” Climate Change Tops List of World’s ‘Extreme Risks’
“Venice is on its knees,” said Brugnaro. “The damage will run into hundreds of millions of euros.” Flood, fire and plague: climate change blamed for disasters
“Last year, insurance payouts caused by climate-related events totaled $2.4 trillion worldwide.” Can Insurance Companies Weather The Storm? What Climate Change Means For The Industry
Clearly the cost of disasters is on the same Hockey Stick trajectory as our climate crisis yet “Business as Usual” carries on as if nothing has changed. All ponzi schemes eventually implode and this one will be no different except in scale. There is no previous analogue to remotely compare with the coming collapse.
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
I would rather have been proven wrong.
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Every day the Ponzi scheme struggles along surprises me.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/billion-dollar-disasters-in-the-us/?fbclid=IwAR0b-2asEckjSEKYHd6xIVLkqtFTDJ3LSUbPVM9wjA4F_Cf49H4JhhsxvrQ
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The largest property insurer left in Florida is capable of paying out $16 billion in claims. Hurricane Ian alone inflicted $100 billion in damages.
Florida’s ‘Last Resort’ Property Insurer Is Now State’s Biggest
• Private insurers have folded, left or curbed Florida business
• ‘We’re all last resort here,’ Miami Beach mayor Gelber says
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-10/hurricane-season-2023-florida-s-biggest-property-insurer-is-nonprofit-citizens#xj4y7vzkg
seal
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FEMA is broke.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/30/fema-disaster-low-funds-00113468?fbclid=IwAR3D5sg4urNgZFk87dY2nFDGTaf8475R4idjX77P9yNbeLn0ZGWawHpkUZ8
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The momentum builds relentlessly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/03/natural-disaster-climate-insurance/?fbclid=IwAR2Ea2DHb0CLWnBtoRuWJxi65KLzsy83s9pTwdPrBY0t-TylQF8CrbVfKUw
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“US sets new record for billion-dollar climate disasters in single year
Country has experienced 23 extreme weather events costing $1bn or more already this year, passing previous mark of 22 in 2020”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/11/us-record-billion-dollar-climate-disasters?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR1M8bbqCwpasoly7kCvIRtclg86a7h6xlXotwifJSO9UjQlA8s4hXyRJC8
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U.S. Sets Record for Billion-Dollar Disasters in a Single Year, With Almost Four Months to Go
https://www.ecowatch.com/billion-dollar-natural-disasters-us.html?fbclid=IwAR0T19yG-aGcj-6U6OFJRGvmzgTqcNYzJW0G6a9Fp4QHPc1SQGbmRW1z2Vs
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Homeowners losing insurance, the extraction industry fully insured!!!!!!
https://www.commondreams.org/news/insurers-underwriting-coal?fbclid=IwAR07vc8ON1zioPQzyuYl_jYot9qbioT-gypnULZvU5vhwsFoCA7C5bHd6Tk
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Nationwide drops over 10,500 N.C. homeowners policies, including some on the Outer Banks.
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Therre are heaps of links embedded below confirming my analysis.
https://www.joboneforhumanity.org/why_are_a_massive_third_wave_of_climate_change_driven_insurance_cancelations_and_skyrocketing_rate_increases_about_to_happen_worldwide?fbclid=IwAR1f4prxvZghzY5V1LCcj9saIgGmxBBwSMpAX35ydxuCCjs1R3OXatxnQ7o
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New York Becomes the Latest State to Require Flood Risk Disclosure for Home Sales
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26092023/todays-climate-new-york-law-requires-flood-risk-disclosure-for-home-sales/
sealintheSelkirks
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From sealintheSelkirks
Again, nothing I’m posting is coming up but the ‘reply’ tab goes dark and stays that way.
This is under: the-insurance-industry-soon-to-be-the-first-pillar
Boy are they going to miss the graft and squeeze they steal from everybody. And when people get pissed enough, how do they get even?
They don’t.
The System Isn’t Designed to Help You
Climate Survivor
View at Medium.com
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Thunderstorms Caused Record $60 Billion in Insured Losses in 2023
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-07/thunderstorms-caused-record-60-billion-in-insured-losses-in-2023?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=twitter&fbclid=IwAR2Nj3oSUSRDTWN7jBxU3_2Xr6yxFqdfeMlrKn0vQeWB0bvCq8OKa3avtcs&leadSource=uverify%20wall
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But wait, there’s more:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/the-top-10-most-impactful-weather-events-of-2023/1603146?fbclid=IwAR1J-Cf9XdPKpQb6t6OAqDNAuL7l956KieiFD7292h3u6vijdJZHyiGFec8
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The BBC have caught up to me:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0h0r5kg?fbclid=IwAR0BvZhaX7PcCifBY4BU-Ks2lkGzYlpBQoivIno7QkPKQW-UWlQq4cQLzPA
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This was an interesting audio, especially the moves made by the UK politicians to keep their insurance industry going and thereby the banks who hold mortgages on places that repeatedly flood and would be condemned and not marketable. So the flood barriers, etc etc. are a way for the gov to subsidize a losing battle.
But this ‘Flood Re’ insurance thing is just a band-aide, as the narrator mentioned. And doesn’t cover businesses. So keeping the houses valuable in the flood plains is okay but not the businesses that serve them?
The floods are going to keep coming, and probably dangerously worse, so eventually (after that 2039 end of Flood Re). And the Aussies are in the same sinking boat…but they are doing a buy-back on houses that makes people get the hell out which is going to make over-population in marginal areas ever more visible.
Piece by piece the parts of industrial civilization are breaking off, aren’t they?
sealintheSelkirks
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Now it’s Hawaii’s turn!
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2024/01/29/hawaii-news/bills-aim-to-assist-hawaii-property-owners-with-policy-costs/?fbclid=IwAR1jXpaQzQ8JUp3lpHMkFAmLZWW1Hqqk3zi2xNhf3K6XzMBRPA0n6UG2_9U
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And it is ALWAYS Floridiotland’s turn but now the lenders are looking at it, too:
https://weather.com/news/climate/video/hurricanes-and-flooding-impacting-mortgage-payments-in-florida
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My oldest friend is damned aware of this living on Windward Side of O’ahu, Crouching Lion area. It’s up from sea level, above Kamehameha Hwy which regularly gets washed by the ocean in storms or king tides, and is tucked into a crack/canyon zone that USED to be a creek there flowing down from the steep Pali according to the old timer local people. It’s a condo complex of course but an older one, with a HOA that he was on the board of for a few years. They are both retired, both have a pension and Social Security, so they are definitely fixed incomes but the yearly insurance continues to climb. And Windward doesn’t get hurricanes all that often due to the blocking of the storm track by the Big Island (which your article is about), but insure costs are going up on all the Islands as high tide damage and the Pacific storms get worse.
Just like the dead hurricane turned tropical storm that went by way to the south of the island chain that suddenly roared back to life and caused the winds that burned down Lahiana. There are still 800 +/- supposedly missing…
Everything we see with weather is aiming a large caliber gun at the head of the insurance industry. Worldwide of course.
But the US now has a year-round tornado season! And flash floods over and over keep showing up, and meaner hurricanes, and heat wave after heat wave then deluge downpours. Hotter droughts, massive windstorms that are ‘unusual’ in ferocity. But the US corporate media is really bad about looking at the entire picture of what is happening around the world but occasionally one sees something like this link above, so I thought I’d post that short clip. There is some awareness I guess…
But it’s mostly ignored by the majority.
Like the groups who are trying to change the incredible violence of the militarized police in this country over 1300 shot by cops last year alone) countering that ‘Back the Blue’ no matter what they do,
The new snarky satire motto t-shirt is “Back the Blue…Until It Happens to You’ with a stick figure cop shooting somebody on the ground. Since climate will happen to us all I’m wondering if a stick figure of the planet would work.
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Sure am NOT looking forward to what’s coming soon. The heat is going to come back and probably earlier than ever…since last year is now the hottest on record I’m sure this summer will do the same damned thing. Like every other year recently that seems to always break the record.
Today it was 10’C under broken cloud skies. What little snow I have is melting off very very fast. The atmospheric river that is about to slam into California/Oregon will probably throw something my way due to a 2nd low pressure storm coming in a bit more northerly after this first one comes in, but not really expecting much but some rain up here. Maybe a bit of high elevation snow?
It’s 31January and I was walking with the dogs (new adoption yesterday) across the property in snowboots this afternoon but it wasn’t cold enough to wear a coat. On the last day of January! So much for living in the mountains next to the Canadian Border, eh?
But with the way this winter has gone, it could flip a switch and do damn near anything I’m thinking.
sealintheSelkirks
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More evidence:
https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/reinsurance/insurers-brace-for-impact-as-seasurface-temperatures-soar-475545.aspx
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Over 300 mudslides in California as deadly storm damage may reach $11 billion
https://www.accuweather.com/en/severe-weather/state-of-emergency-as-deadly-storm-pummels-california-with-160-mph-winds-and-flooding/1619169?fbclid=IwAR34_BxQeqzo43nakrVJU5KVA41mJ81eJWzNvLPCtGEfPTwPD_UbNXGso7c#google_vignette
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Oh yeah, been watching it and hearing from friends down there about the effects. My hometown of Ocean Beach/Mission Beach in San Diego have not been affected that much other than winds and large wave action on the coast from both of the low pressure storms that have come in to combine with this monster atmospheric river flow as it is mostly centered slightly to the north. The ocean heaved itself up and flooded the streets right on the beach of course, Abbot St. flooded again as usual and the sand is disappearing rather quickly, too. But up in the LA Basin and north through Ventura etc etc? Holy shit, a total of 12 inches/30.5 centimeters of rain overnight in different places? That’s 12 feet/4 meters of snow in the Sierras! With falling down hills and radical floods roaring down every narrow canyon and waterway heading for the ocean, every burn scar down there is letting go.
One stormchaser vid (Dr. Reed Timmer) posted a video of the concreted-in LA River that was just raging with 18,000+ cfs blowing down that channel under the bridge he was standing on. Being a pioneer riversurfer there would have been no way I would have been in that because it was death. I have surfed the Snake in Wyoming at 14,000 but there was a get-out behind the wave and slack water for another mile behind it to be able to paddle to shore. But what I was seeing was freaking awesome…and frightening to look at knowing the power on the screen.
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It’s almost 50’F, quit sprinkling about an hour ago, and the sun has just made an appearance. What little snow I had has disappeared turning the property into soft dirt or very squishy mud on the track to the gate. My ski hill claims a couple inches of snow last night so they have gone back up to 116 cm of base on the Peak which, as always, they are inflating since that’s what ski hills do. It
Tomorrow I go for the latest Covid booster the Novavax non-mRNA one, but I have to drive 50 miles to Costco in Spokane for it. And it is no longer being given out for free paid by the government. Corporate market rules have come back into force. I just called and they are costing $116US. And the cost to produce them is $2.85.
The government can’t pay those costs to keep its citizens from being sick or dying, but billions more to Israel and Ukraine and bomb Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Madness, Kevin, utter fucking madness.
The US had only ‘85,000’ deaths from Covid (officially which is an undercount due to deaths by associated diseases caused by the Sequelae Long Covid). About 9,000 by all other strains of influenza circulating in this country, but it’s all about wealth generation and transfer of that wealth to the top of the corporate market pyramid, isn’t it? Hell of a profit being made.
sealintheSelkirks
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“Thirty-six years ago, a fierce storm hit England and France, killing at least 22 people and causing over $35 billion in damages.”
Embrace Chaos? – by Guy R McPherson (substack.com)
Embrace Chaos? (youtube.com)
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No one, absolutely no one could have predicted this 🙂
California State Farm customers in Palisades lose home insurance (sfchronicle.com)
Bel-Air, Pacific Palisades residents lose insurance as State Farm exits – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
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WHAT YOUR INSURANCE AGENT WON’T SAY – Former Insurance Exec Tells All (youtube.com)
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“Home insurance costs spike, with parts of Australia at risk of becoming uninsurable”.
Home insurance costs spike, with parts of Australia at risk of becoming uninsurable – ABC News
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Here we go. The insurance companies are freaking, and bailing in the US ahead of the radical hurricane season expected. Still no word on whether Category 6 has been authorized for hurricanes. They’d best hurry up and decide I’m thinking…
Insurance companies denying coverage ahead of hurricane season. Here is the Gulf Coast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6lk3jRVKak
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Progressive begins dropping thousands of insurance policies in Florida:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_IFeYXkdY8
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It will start happening all over the inland Midwest states, too, because of just insane tornadoes like this one by Dr. Reed Timmer a top storm chaser/meteorologist. This is amazingly freaky to see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNKQolIbuf4
May is typically sees the most tornadoes….
At least wildfire season hasn’t quite started here yet, but then I’ve been uninsured for years since they all bailed after the Paradise Fire down in California. There are a hell of a lot of us property owners who are just shit out of luck for insurance around these mountains.
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sealintheSelkirks
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The fact that the Insurance company cancelled the policy just before the hurricane season screams a huge warming to me!
Imagine that!
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Ya think? They KNOW what is coming. I really need to unload those two double-lot pieces of Florida property I inherited from my auntie before it goes underwater!!
sealintheSelkirks
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4 takeaways from our homeowners insurance investigation
Climate: 4 takeaways from our home insurance investigation (nytimes.com)
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The NYT has caught up with me!
Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System (collapse2050.com)
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As I rarely can read articles from the neoliberal NYT due to their paywall, I’m not going to bother tabbing the link. That they only took this long to get a clue says something about the wealthy blind idiots that own and operate it. As all mass media in this country, it is in the hands of the wealthy few, those sociopaths and very greedy psychopaths that are in control of corporations (there was a study done some years ago that showed corporate leaders easily fit into those descriptions).
I mean, the paper that published the Pentagon Papers hires rightwing assholes like Judith Miller the lying sack of shit Iraq war booster for Wbush, and blood-red columnist Robert Kagan whose little wifey is Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton’s hatchet woman and the queen of ‘Fuck the EU’ fame in a taped phone call about Ukraine’s elections.
And to show how badly the Democrats under Biden are, he HIRED little Viki to work in his administration on…you guessed it, Ukraine!
Fucking sociopaths AND psychopaths!
Not much consolation that they sort of caught up with you because there isn’t anything good going to come of it! They’ll always be behind and on purpose. What are they invested in? The Status Quo of the Wealthy and oil companies and war. Go figure, eh?
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On another note, giant T-storms throwing huge lightning bolts at me today, gi-freaking-gantic t-storm thunderheads cracking 40,000 feet straight up blowing through with heavy downpours of rain, and one bolt started a fire on my ridgeline about a 1.5 miles south downwind that was seen by a friend driving down in the valley on the little 2-laner state hwy that called me. I went and looked (you could only see it from down there), and immediately called 911 for the fire department. They called me and I told them where so they sent a crew…. First fire here so far this year. I don’t want to see any more, but Canada is burning bad.
It was 32’C last Sunday, Kevin, under a blazing sun and bright blue sky. Today never cracked 15’C.
Ta-Ta!
sealintheSelkirks
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No one :), absolutely no one 😉 could have predicted this 😉
Insurers are Pulling out of Climate Risk Zones, Leaving Communities even more Vulnerable (juancole.com)
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Look! You made a funny!
Nope, nobody, not a soul, nada hombres, it was impossible, all economic indicators refused to even consider the atrocious concept that went against all the advice of the bright boys…
Oops.
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Still raining here. Might flip by Monday.
sealintheSelkirks
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“We have less of a concern about the tail on these types of events,” said Junge of Swiss Re, using the industry term for the costliest disasters. “The concern for us is just the impact on earnings.”
How breathtakingly honest, admitting they care not for the suffering or loss, just the balance sheet.
‘Kitty cat’ storms hitting US heartland are growing threat to home insurance | Climate crisis | The Guardian
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Home Insurance Is Clobbering Consumers. Yet It’s Barely Counted in Inflation.
Skyrocketing premiums are hitting homeowners hard, but they barely factor into common price measures.
Home Insurance Is Clobbering Consumers. Yet It’s Barely Counted in Inflation. – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
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The uninsurable world: how the market fell behind on climate change
Surge in floods and fires has caught out the insurance industry and added an ‘uncertainty factor’ to premiums
The uninsurable world: how the market fell behind on climate change (ft.com)
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The insurance industry is going to die:
How ‘kitty cats’ are wrecking the home insurance industry
Supercharged thunderstorms and tornadoes are ravaging the Midwest, driving insurance costs to record highs.
https://grist.org/extreme-weather/home-insurance-midwest-climate-disasters/
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I guess we’ll see how the expected extreme hurricane season will stack up against the extreme tornadoes, straight-line windstorms, and Derechos that have hit this year. Should be an ‘interesting’ comparison I would image. Depending on just how big, and how many, of the freaking things roar in. On Day 7 of the official hurricane season, so far so good, eh?
sealintheSelkirks
By the way, temperature on my front porch in the shade hit about 34’C today. But saw 44’C in Las Vegas, higher in Phoenix Arizona, and nearly as hot in California. Smoke from Canada’s fires dropped over the border into the Upper Midwest today, too.
Yep, things are starting to pop up here in the Northern Hemisphere.
sealintheSelkirks
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The s/e US just got walloped by Hurricane Helene. I mean broken and busted up something awful. Bridges, roads, infrastructure, buildings, just freaking gone. They have no idea how many dead at this point over a hundred dead and at least 600 missing.
Tens of billions in damage all the way into North Carolina (where I have a half-brother & family living). No food no water no sewer systems, it’s all gone. And more storms are forming at this very moment in the Caribbean and the Atlantic. It ain’t over yet this year…
Climate Impacts Put Insurance Commissioner Races in the Spotlight
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29092024/climate-impacts-insurance-commissioner-races/
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In Florida’s Big Bend, small towns bear the brunt of Helene’s impact After three hurricanes in a year, the cycle of recovery continues in hamlets along the state’s west coast.
https://grist.org/extreme-weather/hurricane-helene-yankeetown-florida-evacuation-big-bend-storm-surge/
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And, as usual, it’s the poorest of us who get the worst of it. Eventually the wealthy will I’m guessing.
sealintheSelkirks
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You are going to love this one…in a very perverse and seriously ironic way. The cost increases every day by the way.
Hurricane Helene could cost $200 billion. Nobody knows where the money will come from.
https://grist.org/extreme-weather/hurricane-helene-flood-damage-cost-insurance/
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And to put a cherry on top of that cash number, a Cat 5 hurricane now named ‘Milton’ just formed in the Gulf of Mexico and WILL be hitting the West side of Florida on Wednesday. This storm is as big as Hurricane Katrina that wiped out New Orleans in 2005. I guess I should have tried harder to sell those two lots in Florida, eh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4EuYnj0wLw
sealintheSelkirks
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This just popped up:
Pinellas County Hurricane Milton Media Briefing – 10/7/24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHQvBZzSAvI
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This is going to be bad, and it’s going to hit dead-on where Hurricane Helene winds and surge went ashore as it brushed by heading north to the Big Bend.
This woman is trying to not yell…
sealintheSelkirks
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Getting intense innit!
Good luck dude
20241007 Hurricane Milton 1pm ET Update SISE Now a CAT5 Hurricane – YouTube
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After Helene: In North Carolina, most find they’re uninsured | REUTERS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAlfwE9tDQ4
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And now Florida’s West Coast that was severely fucked up by Helene is about to get SMASHED by Hurricane Milton which, at the moment, is a Cat 5 w/185mph winds heading straight at the Tampa Bay area. It may hit 200mph before landfall, with over 3 meters of ocean surge. Anybody else see the giant piles of debris and sand filling the streets of cities or is it my imagination?
I REALLY should have sold those two inherited properties located inland behind the spreading out bulls-eye of Milton because that subdivision may just get creamed.
Disaster Capitalism at its finest, eh?
sealintheSelkirks
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Just how doomed is home insurance?
Hurricanes like Milton and Helene are making it harder than ever to insure your home.
https://www.vox.com/climate/377094/hurricane-milton-helene-home-insurance-flooding-damage?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
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Be the end of home mortgages in this country pretty dang soon don’t you think? I wonder what the banks are gonna do with all those empty houses that nobody can afford anyway?
I’ve been un-insured since 2019, after Paradise California burned down in 2018. I was cancelled up here the next year so I know how this goes!!
sealintheSelkirks
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Hurricanes Milton and Helene showed the problem of insurance and moral hazard. Here’s how to fix it
At some point the feds must stop bailing out people who build homes and factories in the path of disasters.
https://qz.com/hurricane-milton-helene-flood-insurance-climate-change-1851671042
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Yep, not long now I’m guessing. But tell me, on what part of this planet is there NOT a potential disaster natural or unnatural? Everywhere one lives has some kind of axe hanging over your head!
sealintheSelkirks
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I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the LA Firestorm, but like me up here and in Florida, I’m guessing it won’t be too long before insurance gets dead. Still burning as of tonight, and new mandatory evacuations were issued about 10:30pm for the Palisades area again. It’s growing and the Santa Ana winds are still blowing though not with the hurricane-force of a few days ago. I grew up on the beach in San Diego with those winds blowing every year, and would have to dunk off my board to rinse the falling ash off now and then. This is magnitudes bigger than I ever imagined.
I don’t know anyone that lives in LA now, but I visited my cousin for a week when she lived uphill off Hollywood Blvd and was singing in a band back in the mid-80s. The ‘Sunset Fire’ burned right above where the apartment building was, and traveled Hwy 1 many many times for surf back in the 70s & 80s. Hell, lifeguard towers were burning on the beaches! Mind-boggling.
Last estimate I read was in the tens of billions. Bankruptcy levels.
https://time.com/7205849/los-angeles-fires-insurance/
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sealintheSelkirks
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Awesome dude, thx.
The L.A. Fires And The Uninsurable Earth (Part 1) | Lever Time
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And the fires are STILL burning. No shit. At least the winds have turned to onshore ocean breezes so they aren’t hurricane force anymore, and are carrying ocean moisture.
Something I know well; Santa Ana’s were a fact of life growing up on the San Diego beaches. They were always there in September and October and we could always expect them.
But in JANUARY? WTF?
Firefighters keep moving rubble and discovering fire still going underneath all over the place. Spot fires are blowing up still, the damn gas mains are still leaking, too, because they are buried in debris.
Most of these flare-ups are at the Palisades and the Altadena/Pasadena Fire, which were the worst. Still smoking, Kevin!
They just had a landslide above PCH on the bluffs that landed on a house that survived the Palisades fire, right in front of the ocean at Malibu. The ground above was so soaked from firefighters trying to save the houses higher up the hill that the hillside completely de-stabilized and just suddenly let go, slid down to crush it and break it in half. Then pushed it down the hill some, too, to make sure it was destroyed.
At least the people who lived there could get some of their stuff out I guess. Better than ashes.
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This popped up, and I’m in the red zone in the upper corner of the fire zone map on this link:
https://weather.com/safety/wildfires/video/fire-insurance-wildfire-california-risk-wildfire
I am so not looking forward to fire season this year. Which starts in March and maybe even sooner since it’s the 2nd half of January and I have practically no snow here, maybe 2″ of crusty icy crap and bare spots all over under the trees. Not a good sign.
Understandably nervous, ya know? Insurance policies were cancelled for a hell of a lot of people around here years ago…
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sealintheSelkirks
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So how will all this insurance payouts work for building the wealth of the billionaires that own the companies? Not well is what I’m thinking.
Climate disasters lead to billions in insurance losses. Could they trigger a financial crisis?
Canadian insurance payouts in 2024 exceeded $8.5 billion
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/climate-disasters-financial-crisis-1.7449907
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sealintheSelkirks
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John has caught up!
The outlook for house insurance is much worse than we’re being told – Pearls and Irritations
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Yep, that about covers it. It’s why I’ve been without any kind of homeowners/fire insurance (no flood problems here at least, or landslides) since 2018 when Paradise California burned down as my insurance company, Mutual of Enumclaw, decided to drop insurance in these mountains. As did State Farm, Farmer’s, and other big firms. The risks are just too high.
And I agree, they are. I’m in a forest burn zone that is getting hotter and dryer every year from the collapse of the Holocene Era’s stability our species rose up in.
Then there is the extremely obvious collapse of this country. Hitler destroyed Germany in 59 days. Trump is doing it quicker!
sealintheSelkirks
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What a hell of a time to be alive!
Watching Rome burning live and direct!
‘Tesla Takedown’: How Elon Musk’s Trump alliance is triggering backlash | The Take
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China Just Hit America Where It Hurts Most — Cuts Off Lifeline For U.S. Military!
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Here at the middle of April, still inside the first 3 months of rule by the ongoing 2024 Fascist Coup, it looks like the Trump’s piss-ant picks for running the EPA are torching the entire intertwined housing/bank-mortgage/and insurance market in the US. Isn’t that interesting?
Hunziker nails it again:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/04/11/epa-torches-home-insurance-coverage/
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And I noticed a NYT article which I can’t read due to paywall, says: “more Americans (we’re actually United Statesians), risking ruin, drop their home insurance.” Gee, first-hand knowledge of that!
Already has risen to what used to be June temperatures, the old apple tree is starting to bud (instead of in June), grass is growing (instead of hard frosts and random snowfalls) but it’s a New World, eh? Bet the wildfires will start burning sooner than last year. Every year it gets earlier…
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Hey, you hear about Trumpenfurher’s order to hold a huge military parade in DC on his 79th birthday? Tanks, fighter jets, at least 4 miles long. President ‘Bone Spurs’ of the famous ‘Suckers and Losers’ comment remarking on people who join the military…maybe he’ll bring out nuclear missiles! HOW EXCITING IS THAT?
Very much a North Korean-style march, baby! If there truly were gods overseeing this planet, I wish that Northern European one was around…you know, Loki the mischief-maker who loved messing with people? Who could cause some distress with…a tornado or two just to stir things up and give people something to talk about!
Maybe it’ll rain?
sealintheSelkirks
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Latest from Hunziker who is quoting Gunther Thallinger, Member of the Board of Management of Allianz Group (est. 1889, Munich) the world’s largest insurance company: Climate, Risk, Insurance: The Future of Capitalism d/d March 25, 2025.
With the insurance corporations starting to eat serious shit, Capitalism is right there eating from the same plate. They are tied together, one goes and the other goes down with it. It’s going to be ugly.
Climate Change Kills Capitalism
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/04/21/climate-change-kills-capitalism/
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And he’s correct, there are areas already being kicked to the curb like here where I live. The climate in these mountains is so changed from what I moved to twenty years ago that I really can’t describe it all, I can only live it. We’ve already had the first wildfire a few weeks ago on the west side of the Huckleberry Range next to the Columbia. Lightning strike…instead of snowfall in March. The changes are profound.
Interesting time to be alive, eh Kevin?
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sealintheSelkirks
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I love these anecdotal observations of change, it’s a commonality, the flora seems ‘confused, budding out of season, all sorts of things ‘off kilter’.
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Robert Hunziker’s latest covering Insurance and wet bilb temps.
https://www.pressenza.com/2025/06/swiss-re-sonar-2025-report-global-heat-kills-480000-yr/
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A fascinating summary of the US health insurance system imploding.
Unexpected Rise In Disease Sinks U.S. Insurance Companies – Peak Prosperity
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Insurers Dump Catastrophe Risk of Climate Change and Earthquake to Chump Bond Investors. What Could Go Wrong? | naked capitalism
The Collapse Chronicle July 17 – The Collapse Chronicle
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The crumbling continues.
Climate: Insurers are worried the world could soon become uninsurable
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They are mistaken. It will soon become unlivable.
sealintheSelkirks
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Haha, nice to see the Senator catching up to me, years later.
Time to Wake Up 301: The Four Phases of Climate Denial
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Hunziker quotes Democrat Sen. Whitehouse of RI about the crash of insurance due to climate collapse and the death of the banking mortgage industry.
Yep, the shit-show has already started.
Senator Whitehouse: It May Be Too Late
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/19/senator-whitehouse-it-may-be-too-late/
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And I never have been able to sell the two double-lots that I inherited from my Auntie Maxine years ago in the subdivision inland from Sarasota, Florida. About $50 a year each in property taxes being unimproved lots, and I probably never will. One of these days they’ll probably both wash away in a monster hurricane, or drown in the rising ocean. That area is pretty damned flat!
sealintheSelkirks
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