Acapulco now modern ruins 54

[Reverse_Bias]

This is one of the few instances of a city with lots of fancy high rise buildings taking a direct hit from a catagory 5 hurricane. Almost every inhabitable structure in and around Acapulco looks gutted. No doubt this is going to take years to get it back to its pre storm status.

Hurricane Otis was predicted to be a tropical storm at landfall the day before, so it also represents a modern weather forecasting being pushed beyond its limits.

https://youtu.be/pTjMK4qCDyg?si=zX8U2M9BeFjkkORv

https://youtu.be/0Pb9iq4cbS8?si=QzSzZF6-8qhPxefS

 

[bones206]

I wonder if topographic wind effects were a factor. The heaviest damage seems to be concentrated around the slopes of sharp-ridged hills.

 

[TugboatEng]

Surely. There is less braking from the boundary layer so one should expect higher winds where elevations increase rapidly.

 

[hokie66]

Of course. That is why topographic effects are an important part of most design codes. Not sure about Mexico.

 

[WesternJeb]

Kudos to Bones206 for getting this thread back on track.

 

[1503-44]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=insurance+companies+leave+florida&t=brave&ia=web

People will be next.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[TugboatEng]

We've been over this before. Insurance companies are leaving regions due to high costs of claims, not because of climate change.

 

[cranky108]

It is all about risk factors, and can they make money. Yes they can make money, but the rates may need to be higher.

 

[TugboatEng]

States like California have made it more than just risk factors. In the areas that burned during recent wildfires the state is mandating infrastructure upgrades prior to issuing permits which makes it outrageously expensive to rebuild.

Out of control inflation is a another primary factor. Imagine trying to maintain a profit margin when your material costs jump 30% in 2 years. It makes it impossible to insure in areas that are historically risk prone.

 

[CWB1]

I'm always amazed by how fatalistic many folks become in these circumstances and how short their memories are. In reality, natural disasters happen and people always rebuild. Businesses come, go, and come back. Cost and values increase and fall, often going one direction for decades before reversing. All this happens in a natural and capitalistic cycle. In my 40s now I'm not particularly old but have seen various cities that were utter crap-holes improve and decline, LA and Manhattan esp were written-off in the 80s, thought perfect in the Y2ks, and written-off again during recent declines. Personally, I have faith that things will improve bc 1. history demonstrates that and 2. bc worrying is an utter waste of valuable time and dam depressing, it literally leads to a miserable, far-less productive life.

 

[1503-44]

In addition to high litigation expenses ...

The weather does seem to be on their minds, including deSantis.

https://eu.pnj.com/story/money/2023/07/12/florida-insurance-crisis-farmers-insurance-home-insurance-what-to-know/70407302007/[/URL]]An increase in storm hazards played another important role. United Property and Casualty, a Florida insurance company that is in liquidation, wrote that between 1851 and 2018, 41% of the 292 hurricanes that hit the U.S. in that time frame also hit Florida — 37 of those 120 hurricanes were rated a Category 3 or higher.

The high cost of severe weather damage has prompted more than a dozen insurers to either pull out of Florida or increase rates. That comes despite $3 billion spent by the legislature in the past year to stabilize the industry.

“I think you’re going to start to see companies see an advantage," Governor Ron DeSantis offered his forecast earlier this week during The Howie Carr Show. 

He also said, “I think what’s going to happen is because we did those reforms, it now is more economical for companies to come in, I think they’re going to wait through this hurricane season and then I think they’re going to be willing to deploy more capital to Florida. So knock on wood (that) we won’t have a big storm this summer."

Wiles said it’s unrealistic to not expect a big storm, but said he has heard large insurance companies are talking about returning to Florida after this hurricane season.

When insurance companies pull out of TX, LA, CA and FL., you don't suspect its the weather?
High costs usually are not associated with TX and LA.

CWB1, Agree. That's kind of the problem isn't it. After a hurrican passes, they all collect their cheques and rebuild bigger and better on the same spot, just to get whiped off the map again and again. Why worry, as long as you can get insurance.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[TugboatEng]

That's why I mentioned inflation. Labor costs, too. Those are high nationally which make it costly to rebuild in places like Texas and Louisiana.

 

[1503-44]

What's going to make it costly is no insurance.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

to be honest its not these days. And insurance rebuilt will cost 10 to 20 times.

my barn has cost 20k sticking the finger up and playing the local rags.

if i got local builders in to do the basic structure it would be over 80k

 

[TugboatEng]

https://www.williamskastner.com/new...construction-costs-impacting-insurance-rates/

 

[1503-44]

I can see that inflation is one reason for rising costs, but there has always been higher costs due to inflation. A house today costs 10-20x more than my first house, a house that also cost less than my present car. Gasoline was 17c/gal. Campbell's chicken soup was 12c/can. Loaf of bread was 24c. That's inflation. Strangely enough I don't recall inflation as ever having been a reason insurance companies left perfectly good business opportunities on the table. Rising costs are recovered by rising sales prices, which when recovered, actually increase profits (although in inflated dollars). But that is not true with rising risk. Rising risk kills any opportunity to make a profit in the insurance business and in fact will increase losses substantially. Insurance is a risk balancing game. When they know the costs and risks, they can set rates to make a profit. That's what they do. They know the inflation predictions for costs. What they are unsure of is the risks they see today. When insurance companies do not know the value of either one or the other variable, they don't write policies. Rising risk is the logical cause.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[TugboatEng]

The trouble is that if you raise rates enough to cover your costs and they become unaffordable for the customers you start losing your customers. As customers are lost, revenue is lost, and per customer costs increase. Now it doesn't make sense to insure in that region.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireS...se-california-afford-home-insurance-104681576

And you can't blame risk because the area has already burned.

 

[1503-44]

Not entirely true. Insurance companies will write a lot of weird policies for football players potential injuries, opra singers voices, or whatever, as long as they think they can adequately define the risk. There is not necessarily a need for mass marketing to make a profit in insurance, as long as yhey can limit their exposure, number of payouts x average cost thereof x P(payout). I think they can put numbers on inflated costs, or just cap the payout value if they can't, and they know the max number of possible payouts. Its the risk they don't know. That's the number they don't have any clue about today. Sorry, its risk again.

In any case, no insurance isn't good for obtaining a mortgage either. No housing loans; people will leave, or certainly not chose to live there in unaffordable rent housing. Somebody must pay the insurance, or potential rebuild costs, policy or not.

--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[TugboatEng]

And that's why we have insurance commissioners. They limit how insurance companies can limit exposure.

 

[azcats]

Nationwide, Florida has 9% of homeowners claims but 79% of homeowners insurance lawsuits. Litigation a bigger bogeyman to insurance companies than climate change.

 

[1503-44]

That looks like the result of two problems.

79% of lawsuits is the legal problem.
9% is the climate change part.
If by state, the 9% would only be 2% of claims and 1.6% of lawsuits.
If by population, it should be 6% of claims and 4.7% of lawsuits.
Let's assume it's by population. Its still 50% more claims then they should have.
If by some combination of 1/50 States and 21MM/333MM population, its something like double.
Disproportional damages might also cause litigation, if insurance companies aggressively limit payouts in the face of massive damages and inflated rebuild vosts. Litigation might be cost effective. But no, they wouldn't do that though, right?

In any case, several insurance companies admit to the climate change aspect being part of their decision to pull out. I can take their word for it.


--Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."