So Cal Fires!!!

[FNSafari]

I live in North Los Angeles county in a 1,600 square foot stucco walled tile roof tract house. Four years ago my homeowners insurance was $1,150 a year then 2 years later it was $2,450 as most insurers had left CA or wouldn't write policies. In June 2024 it went to $8720 and only one company would write a policy. A broker told me if I could get a policy under $10k I was lucky and to jump on it. I told him if I have to pay $8,720 I will burn it down myself and get a new house. Why should I have to live in a 40 year old house ?
Your lender requires that you are insured so the state has a thing called the California Fair Plan(it is anything but fair) that is 4x the price for a quarter of the coverage. It only covers for fire and flood, does not cover rebuilding to current code upgrades, no liability, contents, lodging while rebuilding, etc. The private companies will write wrap around policies to cover all the things Fair Plan doesn't cover, they will not write policies for the actual structure.
A neighbor recently bought his 3 bed 2 bath house for $970K(it has a nice pool) which is absolutely ridiculous and he will be in for a shock when he gets his new policy next year. His initial homeowners policy is issue thru the loan and was only $3,400. My house property taxes are assessed at $216K for the structure and $104K for the land and my insurance quote of $8,720 is based on the $216K to rebuild the structure. His assessment is going to be close to $700K so he can triple my price of $8,720 if any company will write a policy.
In 2019 we had the Tick Fire that raged in 70mph winds burning ~5,000 acres and 32 homes. I was the only person on my street that stayed, going from house to house putting out fires in brush, patio covers, awnings, etc. When everyone left I suddenly had great water pressure. I saved mine and 3 others that were in the path of the fire but the 3rd house from mine was lost as he has pine trees on the side of his house that the fire was coming from and there was no way I could battle that with a garden hose. We still have some charred fence posts and burned tree trunks as reminders and I will never be able to scrape the melted plastic off the concrete where my trash cans burned up. One thing I added was 1/8th inch stainless steel screen to my attic vents as that is how embers got into several homes and destroyed them. Nothing like the scale of what is currently going on but close enough for me.
Overall it is another failure of California's leaders who are again putting their political agendas ahead of their citizens safety from both crime and natural disasters. We pay the highest taxes and get nothing in return. And to top it all off the idiot governor shows up in a large gas guzzling black SUV while he mandates electric cars for the state.

Insurance is just another industry where investors put up money and assume risk. When the risk outweighs the potential reward, they do what any other well-run business would do, they minimize the risk by leaving the state for less fire prone areas, or raise pricing to reflect the risk. Would you accept $40,000 a year to insure a 2 million $ home in the area being devastated now, or one like it?

 

[Old Navy]

Funny how there isn’t any water to fight fires, yet there’s an ocean all along the coast…..

Salt water can have salt removed. Pipes and tanks can be fabricated. Small power stations can be built to operate the equipment to keep the tanks topped off. Once fire fighting water is full, excess water could be sold for profit.

That would require effective money management skills… well… it was a thought.

It takes a lot of energy and equipment to remove the salt and treat the water. The Navy does it on every ship. We took 2 minute showers for up to 45 days at a time because our evaporators couldn't keep up.

 

[mrjdasr]

National Guard is still pro 2A and carrying M4's

ammo ???? bet not

 

[Brians356]

That part of CA has very little rain,

That's subjective and debatable. Here's nearly 150 years of rainfall data (inches per year) in downtown Los Angeles. There are very dry years, but also many years approaching the national average, and some as wet as Seattle's average.


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[dryhumor]

It takes a lot of energy and equipment to remove the salt and treat the water. The Navy does it on every ship. We took 2 minute showers for up to 45 days at a time because our evaporators couldn't keep up.

True. I’ve experienced both the flash evaporator 2 minute showers, and the reverse osmosis leisure showers. Either one takes a lot of energy. At some point in time I feel small scale nuclear will be all over the place, same principle as the small remote weather stations used to be back in the 1960-70s only a bit bigger.

The “not enough water” can is still being kicked down the road. A lot of stress on our aquifers, not enough rainfall being captured, rivers and creeks being sucked nearly dry. I’ve drank treated water from runway runoff, rain capture from cisterns, even snow melt, they’ll figure it out. But it’ll be damn expensive.

As long as my well still delivers, I’ll let the generations behind me worry about it.

 

[jds holler]

As far as insurance goes, there's getting to be a lot of places where if you're gonna build there and enjoy that particular paradise, you'd better be able to "self insure".

It's easy enough to build and live in a 2 million dollar place in one of these non-insurable zones, if you have 10 or 20 million to cover the loss if the hurricane blows it away. -- or the fire, or the flood, or whatever.

I kinda do the same thing with the vehicles I own, on a much smaller scale. jd

 

[Bc'z]

Insurance is just another industry where investors put up money and assume risk. When the risk outweighs the potential reward, they do what any other well-run business would do, they minimize the risk by leaving the state for less fire prone areas, or raise pricing to reflect the risk. Would you accept $40,000 a year to insure a 2 million $ home in the area being devastated now, or one like it?

Forgive me but isn't John Q Public paying thier premiums the investors?

 

[Sniperhandle]

Forgive me but isn't John Q Public paying thier premiums the investors?

Yes, They want the premiums, But don't want to have to pay anything out. They never lose, They just raise the premiums across the board to recoup their losses. I don't feel sorry for the insurance industry at all.

 

[Capt. Oblivious]

I didn't hear any discussion about what Trump-proofing meant, and only suspect it would be along the lines of biden's last minute regulatory executive actions to hinder changes.

Old Gavin essentially wants to stop DJT form removing any illegal from Cali, Tom Homan said anyone that goes against the governments plans of mass deportation and hides or harbors illegals in the US will go to prison so let see how this plays out

 

[FNSafari]

Forgive me but isn't John Q Public paying thier premiums the investors?

Only if they are doing business with a mutual insurance company, then the policy holders own the company and take the risk. If they are doing business with a public company, the shareholders are taking the risk.

 

[J.d. Popkes]

Yes, They want the premiums, But don't want to have to pay anything out. They never lose, They just raise the premiums across the board to recoup their losses. I don't feel sorry for the insurance industry at all.

If they “lose”, then nobody gets paid because there’s no money. I’m not a fan of insurance companies. It’s still a business though, not communism. Has to be profitable. If you were an insurance company would you be licking your chops to insure a hillside full of multi million dollar homes inhabited by democrats who don’t do anything to prevent these things including voting for their leaders, surrounded by kindling with no water to put fire out? If you were a business would that be a solid idea? Not a charity or government agency, but a business that is required to make money to exist. You want homeowners insurance to go the way of Obamacare?

Should everyone in the nation pay for this cluster? Really? My premiums are always going up, probably because of this shit. And some is surely to pay Pat Mahomes for the commercials.

If you’re driving while hammered, roll your pickup, why should it be insured?

 

[dellet]

All California has to do is pass a law that the water used to mine lithium has to be reclaimed for any car sold in the state.

Use that water to refill Mono lake and lake Owens and a couple others that Los Angeles previously drained and there will be plenty of raw materials for batteries for the mandated EV only state and water for the residents to drink and fight fires with.

No new dams will need to be built, historic wetlands will be restored so no nasty permit process and EPA studies that take years to arrive at no conclusion.

Other than Nevada becoming a complete desert with a sink hole problem after the aquifer is depleted, what is there to lose?
The golden state and it’s pretty people can once again be the driving force for reality based shows and a non sustainable lifestyle everyone else can envy.

 

[ebb]

Tom just because the media reports money being sent to NC does not necessarily mean that any of it ever got to the ones that need it. Money was ear marked for EV chargers over 3 years ago and last I heard only a handful had ever been installed. Both parties have allowed money to disappear into the hands of friends and family. Do you remember the banking collapse under Obama much of the money went to bonuses for the very people that caused the problem in the first place. ALL politicians have to get elected and lots of money is spent to accomplish the task, the people that donate that money expect something in return, they usually get it from the taxpayer one way or another.

 

[wedgy]

LA County Public Works claims to have captured some ridiculous amount in the trillions of gallons of runoff storm water by making small infiltration ponds along the freeways, they dig a big pit then fill it with pea gravel, similar to a leach line of a septic system. Sounds great, right ? The truth is that most of these are in bedrock, sandstone, and claystone that don't really absorb water, and none of them flow into a useable watershed. Within 2 years of building every one that I could see along the freeway had been covered up with silt making it more or less useless.
So where is this 8 trillion gallons of water ? Oh, it's in the ground, where you can't see it, but trust me... it's there.

 

[Bc'z]

Only if they are doing business with a mutual insurance company, then the policy holders own the company and take the risk. If they are doing business with a public company, the shareholders are taking the risk.

I get what your saying, but anyone in the insurance game knows the risks of thier business.
A GAMBLE if you will...
They collect $$$ from the masses in hopes of never having to pay out, knowing the money collected outweighs what they're paying out.
Sounds like a numbers game run by the Mafia, "legalized organized crime".

With 35 years in a body shop I've witnessed and financially felt thier numbers game.
It used to be we had field adjusters that wrote sheets to repair damaged vehicles, that burden has been placed on the shops and passed on to the technicians, yet shops and techs are not paid for, in fact the times shops/techs are paid to preform the same operations have gone down all while doing the insurance companies logistics.
Yeah insurance is a Fk'n racket, prove me wrong.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

If banks fold up over these mortgages on multi million dollar homes, watch out!

 

[J.d. Popkes]

I get what your saying, but anyone in the insurance game knows the risks of thier business.
A GAMBLE if you will...
They collect $$$ from the masses in hopes of never having to pay out, knowing the money collected outweighs what they're paying out.
Sounds like a numbers game run by the Mafia, "legalized organized crime".

With 35 years in a body shop I've witnessed and financially felt thier numbers game.
It used to be we had field adjusters that wrote sheets to repair damaged vehicles, that burden has been placed on the shops and passed on to the technicians, yet shops and techs are not paid for, in fact the times shops/techs are paid to preform the same operations have gone down all while doing the insurance companies logistics.
Yeah insurance is a Fk'n racket, prove me wrong.

Don’t completely disagree. A racket, that’s required by law no less, always dicey.

What’s your fix?

 

[NorCalMikie]

It takes a lot of energy and equipment to remove the salt and treat the water. The Navy does it on every ship. We took 2 minute showers for up to 45 days at a time because our evaporators couldn't keep up.

In this situation, who cares if it's salty or not. If it's wet, and abundant, it'll do!!

 

[J.d. Popkes]

Why did State Farm get downgraded?


State Farm General's downgrade was related to a specific set of conditions in California that are making it difficult for homeowner's insurers to operate profitably in the state, such as the increased incidence of wildfires.Apr 12, 2024

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When An Insurer is Downgraded, What Does it Mean for You?​

 

[NorCalMikie]

Yeah insurance is a Fk'n racket, prove me wrong.

Yah but you can't hardly do without!! Try going without on a BIG medical issue. Had no $$$$ going in and damn sure won't have any when they get thru with you. At least you're still alive?