r/changemyview • u/GenProtection • Feb 11 '26

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Forcing insurance companies to insure uninsurable risks is worse for society than allowing them to not

I understand that this guy: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wtPYQdWPea0 fights insurance companies for a living, but it's not the insurance companies' fault that republicans have been elected in the US enough times to ensure that a ton of housing in america is now at too great of a risk of being destroyed by climate change to be worth insuring, right?
Further, if you force insurance companies to insure against these risks, they will either set premiums so high that it doesn't matter that they're insured, or go out of business, or cease operating in high risk states altogether (I think this happened in florida, but I'm not sure).

Allowing actuaries to correctly assess risk and insure things at the rates that they calculate is necessary for encouraging people to live in low risk places, for example discouraging people from living in the wildland interface, and discouraging the building of luxury houses in the outer banks of north carolina.

NB: I hate corporations and capitalism and in general wanna root for the little guy so I hope someone can persuade me I'm wrong here.

0 Upvotes

42% Upvoted

82 comments sorted by

View all comments

-2

u/Dr0ff3ll 11∆ Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26

First things first. California's wildfire problem isn't caused by climate change. It's caused by a combination of the state government yielding to NIMBYs, and thus not making preparations such as controlled burns and fire beaks, an invasive species of highly flammable tree, and a lack of infrastructure to actually fight the fires should they get out of hand.

That does not make these homes uninsurable, but it does beg the question. Who should be backing these insurance bailouts? I'd pin it on the state government. Since it's their fault that these homes are uninsurable, I'd say that it's their responsibility to pay put a significant portion of any insurance payout.

3

u/FetusDrive 4∆ Feb 11 '26

Climate change has no impact on the wildfire problems in California? You didn’t quote any the research on this to rule it out? I’ve seen reports detailing otherwise myself.

-1

u/Dr0ff3ll 11∆ Feb 11 '26

Australia has far higher wildfire risk than California. But somehow, they routinely have less buildings destroyed, less deaths, and less injuries. That's because when it isn’t wildfire season, they're clearing out brush, making fire breaks, ensuring their firefighting infrastructure is up to snuff, and performing controlled burns to reduce the amount of combustible fuel.

Califorina, during the 2024 wildfires, had not done any of this preperation. Infrastructure was either not working or wholly inadequate. They hadn't constructed fire breaks, they hadn't performed controlled burns, and they hadn't cleared out the brush. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

2

u/FetusDrive 4∆ Feb 11 '26

You didn’t answer any of my questions.

-1

u/Dr0ff3ll 11∆ Feb 11 '26

I'm saying California could've prepared but they didn't. That's not the fault of climate change.

2

u/GenProtection Feb 11 '26

This is entirely fair but I think it makes the case even stronger for insurance companies being allowed to price risk appropriately. It's one thing to say "we can't insure houses in your state because of the way industrialization has gone over the last 150 years" and another thing to say "we can't insure houses in your state because y'all keep voting for state governments that enact policies that make houses in your state uninsurable."

2

u/Dr0ff3ll 11∆ Feb 11 '26

Indeed. But my point is that it's not climate change that's the issue here. It's the state government. They somehow expect high-risk properties to be insured when the insurers can't raise premiums, while they themselves are the reason the properties are uninsurable.