Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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The price is what risk models indicate. If no one else will insure the market (Citizens is insurer of last resort, socialized insurance), this is the price.

You don't have to believe in climate change [1] [2] [3], your insurer and the financial system will for you, and price accordingly. The cost and frequency of loss is rising, these are facts.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240712-modern-hurricane... ("BBC: Modern hurricanes are rewriting the rules of extreme storms")

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thunderstorms-hav... | https://archive.today/4UBn4 ("Scientific American: Thunderstorms Have Caused $45 Billion in Damages in the U.S. in Just Six Months")

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-18/climate-c... | https://archive.today/0KOEz ("Bloomberg: Climate Change’s ‘Physical Risks’ Are Catching Up With Banks | The financial industry is waking up to the potential losses from extreme events and long-term changes in weather patterns.")

Do you know how much of the increase is due to climate change and how much is due to things like the fact that Florida has 75% of the nation's homeowner insurance lawsuits despite under 10% of claims?

Florida’s Senate Bill 2-A, which went into effect on December 16, 2022, no longer allows assignment of benefits to contractors. In May 2022, Florida’s 25% Roof Replacement Rule was eliminated and replaced with Senate Bill 4-D. The law originally stated that if more than 25% of the roof was damaged, the entire roof would need to be replaced to meet code requirements. SB 4-D states that as long as the rest of the roof complies with Florida’s 2007 building code, it only needs to be repaired. For roofs 15 years or older, insurance companies must allow homeowners to obtain an inspection by an authorized inspector before mandating a roof replacement for policy issuance or renewal (but a policy can still be denied based on the condition of roof from that report).

If insurance pricing declined after legislative fixes, I believe that would be evidence these reforms were contributing factors. The fact that insurance premiums continue to rise (even at the state insurer of last resort) leads me to believe reforms are insufficient to contain insurance costs, and that climate change is the primary driver.

Originally I had mentioned that but I think the real driver is the number of lawsuits, do you know if those declined after those legislative fixes? I haven't been able to find any up to date statistics to show that lawsuits are in line with the rest of the country now.

https://archive.today/mL5SE

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41324748

https://kyla.substack.com/p/home-insurance-is-a-really-big-p...

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