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Comment by hot_gril | Hacker News Reader

CA also has sort of a price cap on wildfire home insurance, which has prompted many insurers to leave the state entirely.

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This one frustrates me because when the government intervenes to try to lower wildfire insurance premiums they are literally risking people’s lives.

People should have to pay the full cost of the risk of living in these dangerous areas so the price system encourages them to move.

Definitely agree, and I also firmly believe that each property should get exactly one FEMA bailout ever. If you live in Florida and your house gets destroyed by a hurricane, FEMA should pay you for it. If you choose to rebuild on that exact same spot, and your house gets destroyed by a hurricane, you should get exactly bupkis.

This should carry with the property address - the next person who buys it should have to sign a form acknowledging that they aren't going to get a FEMA bailout if it gets destroyed.

Lots of Florida Republicans out there who complain about welfare but rely on some of the biggest welfare checks that get written to repair their homes because of the absolutely foreseeable results of their choices.

> the next person who buys it

If they can’t build on it, who would buy it? Urban farmers?

In any case, your plan would destroy the land value, and the corresponding property tax revenue.

> In any case, your plan would destroy the land value, and the corresponding property tax revenue

Sounds like the market effectively discovered the true value of the property with all externalities priced in. I don’t see a problem here?

The problem is that the city relies on property tax revenues to function.

perhaps disaster prone areas shouldn't be worth a lot?

The value of the land has already been destroyed. What’s going on now is corrupt public subsidy.

Well, it would likely be affordable at least.

On the downside, when the next disaster hit and FEMA didn't cover it, it would look like FEMA doesn't want to cover low income housing, which isn't a good look.

But there does need to be some mechanism to convince people to abandon homes and towns that are not appropriate given environmental conditions. And it needs to be done carefully so it's not like kick all the poor people out, do some civil engineering that never happened while it was a poor community, then sell the land to developers who make a huge profit.

That is basically what governments are for, collective actions that make land more valuable: roads, schools, police, fire departments, and civil engineering projects.

I could be mistaken on this, as I don't live in an area where such things are common, but my understanding is the issue is that if your house is destroyed by say, a hurricane, no insurance provider (or fema) gives you a bag of cash and says "move", reimbursement is predicated on rebuilding the structure where it stood.

Insurance makes you whole, not the property. You are perfectly welcome to pocket the cash. Although if you have a mortgage, you do have an additional obligation to maintain the value of their collateral or pay off the loan.

If you have replacement cost coverage (as opposed to actual cash value (=depreciated value) you typically have to use it to reconstruct the home if you want the full amount. This is typical.

"We will pay no more than the actual cash value of the damage until actual repair or replacement is complete." [0]

[0] https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/HO3_sample....

Terrible idea, so glad the government structured NFIP this way.

And a rational insurance program would not keep insuring the same property over and over as it gets destroyed.

If built to modern codes houses can survive a hurricane, or so I'm told.

Not all coastal areas have the same strict building code. Homes not built with concrete exteriors and hurricane tie down anchors have a strong risk of being demolished in strong hurricanes. South Florida revamped their building codes after Hurricane Andrew wiped many of the homes and infrastructure in the 90s. However, not all coastal houses in northern Florida or on the gulf are built with concrete or on stilt foundations.

A secondary threat is prolonged flooding which can submerge entire homes with salt water for weeks at a time. That's very costly and not preventable with existing homes in flood zones.

This I never understood. Other countries didn't need building codes mandating such things - people always built houses that were intended to stand for many decades and that are suited to their local environment[1].

It defies comprehension that despite being somewhat poorer and enjoying milder weather, Europeans built their houses from brick and mortar while the US insists on erecting cheap cardboard boxes that even if they're not blown away or flooded, will probably rot away within the lifetime of their owner.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/Y678tV7.png

this isn't the three little pigs. Brick is not automatictally stronger. Wood houses have advantages as well, and can be just as strong.

I did not use the word "wood" once. I don't think houses with walls you can kick holes in qualify as wood houses. They're closer to cardboard than wood.

Anyways, the point isn't the materials - the point is that the houses are fundamentally unsuited to the environment they are in.

Are you just constantly kicking your walls or something? I don't get why it's such a big issue. I've only accidentally made a hole in a wall once and it was about an hour fix.

Drywall walls have never been a problem for me, in fact they're pretty nice. It's really easy to modify the walls. Need to do a new Ethernet run? Want another power run? Feel like moving a lightswitch? Install new access points on the ceiling or change up light fixtures? Easy to drop down the void and cut a new box. Want to redesign the layout of a room? Often not a problem, easy to change.

Meanwhile a concrete wall is a massive pain to modify. You get the runs you get. Good luck redoing a layout. Say goodbye to having good wireless coverage.

> good wireless coverage

We were talking about houses blowing away and falling over but sure.

Even in places with lots of hurricanes the odds of the house "blowing away and falling over" are pretty slim. I speak as a person who grew up in a place that gets a lot of hurricanes. The biggest impact is usually flooding and roof damage.And now, once again, as someone living in a highly tornado-probe area, it's mostly roofing damage. The odds the tornado will destroy your house is still incredibly slim.

So do you spend significantly more for construction for a failure that's still extremely unlikely? Y'all are acting like every time there's a thunderstorm all the houses just blow down. You're entirely disconnected from reality of the actual risks versus massive increase in costs.

Very few houses are a total loss in the average hurricane. Indeed during most hurricanes there’s just lots of minor damage that you might see during a particularly bad thunderstorm, and people even continue to go to work.

Major hurricanes are a different story. But even then total loss is relatively rare except for storm surges unless you’re in the path of the eyewall.

There is no construction that can withstand storm surge, which is the biggest and most destructive hurricane impact. Even if the structure is intact, everything has to be ripped out of it. Most of them do survive winds short of tornadoes, though roof damage is very typical for major hurricanes and tree falls can cause problems.

We’re talking about the wind blowing up to 30ft of saltwater _miles_ inland. Given the comparative rarity of a major hurricane in any given geographical location and the oddities that determine the storm surge and where it comes in, the damage usually is worst in places it’s never flooded before - because places where it has are indeed required to build higher.

The US used to build using brick and mortar. It was abandoned because it was unsafe, most of those buildings were destroyed by environmental hazards that Europe does not have. Consequently, most housing in the US for the last century or more primarily uses wood, which does survive the hazards endemic to the US.

In most of the US, only wood or steel frame construction is safe. Wood houses last centuries.

Wood is used primarily where wood is plentiful. Northern Europe uses wood to build, especially Finland. Japan uses wood to build, although they import from Canada these days. Australia also uses lots of wood.

Wood holds up better in earth quakes and tornadoes than brick, but you could probably build safe buildings with bricks in the USA, they would just cost more and require similar or more maintenance.

The earthquake retrofits for brick buildings seem to essentially install a structural steel frame to which the brick is fastened. At which point it is not really a brick structure but a steel one. New “brick” construction is almost entirely brick facades over a steel/wood frame.

While steel-reinforced masonry can be made safe, it isn’t obvious to me that actual brick-and-mortar can be.

Europe really use brick construction. Germany and France don’t have alot of earthquakes. They also don’t have many trees.

Materials availability / cost is the driving force.

America has lots of wood and lots of gypsum, and that's what we build our houses with.

The design problem is more complex than you are portraying. I don’t need my house to last for 200 years if it comes at the cost of not being able to modify it (walls, windows, openings, floor plan) as infrastructure needs change.

Do you notice the awkward protruding wall plug, seemingly used by the lamp, on the photo you linked? It doesn’t have to be that way - I have put a receptacle or switch in to the perfect spot as a one day project many times, and we have reworked wall layout in several places.

And, the photo looks like it has single pane windows with snow outside? They might not have had functional multi pane windows when the home was built?

Needs and technical capabilities change, and a design that is less committed to mass walls has important flexibility.

> And, the photo looks like it has single pane windows with snow outside? They might not have had functional multi pane windows when the home was built?

That's water outside. After a storm. That's a waterproof house in a coastal area of Germany that tends to flood during storms.

Needless to say those windows are designed with another problem than just insulation in mind. I can't tell you whether they're multi pane. All I know is that they open towards the outside rather than the inside for obvious reasons.

This is what building to code should address. If a house is built to a specific hurricane code, and is destroyed due to other reasons (a hypercane, for instance), then let insurance cover this and mandate rebuilding to an even higher standard.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hurricane-idalias-destr...

: Dozens of modest homes along the Big Bend coast were heavily damaged in the floodwaters, but interspersed among the debris were residences left relatively unscathed, all because they were built elevated on stilts.

I'd do it a little differently.

If a house is destroyed by any form of reasonably common widespread disaster it becomes illegal to build anything on that lot that would likewise be destroyed. You can rebuild after the hurricane, you must build a house that will stand up to a hurricane. (Yes, it can be done.)

I wouldn't apply this to flukes--your town does a Tunguska there's no reason to require asteroid-safe houses.

I would also make an exception for things which by their nature must be in the line of fire--such things must never be permanent habitation and can't have community-rate insurance against whatever happened to them.

A business can rebuild it's beach cabanas but would have to go to Lloyd's if they wanted insurance.

While I understand the idea, who would buy these properties they likely may want to sell to escape these rising costs?

for long standing communities, ideally the government would offer voluntary buyouts if they can’t find someone willing to cover the insurance premium.

they already do the same in flooding zones.

but yes, people who live in fire-prone areas may take a loss. encouraging people to anticipate these losses is part of a functioning market. if they can live somewhere risky without financial risk, we only encourage future people to do the same.

me, i'll take discounted land in california any day of the week.

For $1 each, lots of people. Price will find buyers.

You're only looking at step 1.

If you recursively got everyone in dangerous areas to move, no one would live in California. If you live in a population center in California, the only reason why you aren't prone to wildfires is because of the people living around you that are.

It's a scenario where everyone paying the same actually makes sense. Your insurance is that others are accepting the risk of losing all their personal belongings or even their lives - even if insurance will cover them financially.

It's not the same as hurricanes or earthquakes.

Its quite unfortunate because it would be a great opportunity to accurate price the risk to encourage better building standards and fireproofing. In reality we don't need people to move to greatly reduce the risk.

In many wildfire events homes burn because brush/scrub burns all the way up to the house and catches the siding on fire, or because embers land on the roof or enter soffits and start a fire that way. These things are really easily improved. Insurance could require fireproof siding, no bushes/plants right up against the house, fire screens on roof/soffit vents, and fireproof roofing. Those changes alone would decrease the number of houses that burn in a fire.

Obviously there are some areas where the landscape, wind patterns, and nature of trees means if it burns it will rage and everything's gonna go up no matter what you do. But that isn't everywhere.

What I don't know right now: how much does CA law allow insurers to price this kind of risk? Is it a matter of law not allowing them to send accurate price signals? I can believe this is the case. I also don't know if CA law allows them to only sell in certain areas... there's no practical wildfire risk to the Bay Area for example so why stop writing policies there?

Or are insurers going into knee-jerk mode or even using this as an opportunity to goose profits (knowing that wildfires wax and wane)? I can also believe this is happening.

Like I said: it is unfortunate that CA law, insurance companies, or both are not using this as an opportunity to improve fire survivability in rural areas.

According to State fire officials (Cal Fire), the entire state of California will burn. It is simply a matter of “when.”

There is practical wildfire risk in the Bay Area. You should drive down 280 some time.

Much of the Bay Area is urban and suburban, with very little chance of a wildfire ever threatening those homes. Why stop writing policies in those areas?

wildfire insurance isn't saving lives, the state does that via fire departments.

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