Even Doubters Want to Prepare for Global Warming

[MoSurveyor]

So I suspect you would happily subscribe to the percieved greed of fossil fuel companies but not that of insurance companies . Interesting . In my experience insurance companies are about the most cynical and devious businesses around and I certainly dont hold their integrity in a very high regard. Its just a matter of personal opinion at the end of the day

I have NO doubt about the greed of insurance companies. You keep missing the point. The insurance companies don't need an excuse - but you seem to think they do. While acknowledging their greed and "devious business [practices]", you turn around and say they have no power to raise rates without fabricating a reason.

Down the hall, third door on the left ... "Conspiracy Theory".

 

[flogger]

Down the hall, third door on the left ... "Conspiracy Theory".

Yeah I caught that strawman last time . Do you play any other tunes ? :roll:

 

[MoSurveyor]

Yeah I caught that strawman last time . Do you play any other tunes ? :roll:

It's only a strawman if it's not a conspiracy theory. In your case it obviously isn't a strawman.

 

[marywollstonecraft]

Why not ? If they actually believe the future risk has been exaggerated they may well stand to earn a pretty penny. Present day green guilt will most likely turn out to be a nice little earner for them in the fullness of time. Do you think thier executives havent been studying whats actually been happening to temperatures lately and might not be that cynical ?

so why is there an increased refusal to insure?

During the nine years she's lived in her historic sea captain's house on Cape Cod, Mass., Paula Aschettino never filed a claim against her homeowner's insurance policy. But last year she received a letter from her insurer, Hingham Mutual Group, canceling coverage on her nine-room, $600,000 oceanfront home, which has withstood its share of hurricanes since 1840. She and her husband, Michael, scrambled to find other insurance but were repeatedly denied. "They just said we are in a high-risk area," she says. A spokesman for Hingham, which canceled 9,000 Cape Cod policies, says that the company's own coverage--known as "reinsurance"--had doubled in the past year, making it necessary to withdraw from the coastal market.

The Insurance Climate Change - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

While some insurers are charging higher premiums due to concerns about climate change (which is most likely based on assessment of risk, rather than cashing in on people's fear) many are withdrawing from the market where there is an elevated risk du to extreme weather events associated with climate change.


its been going on for a while ....

The Reinsurance Association of America (RAA) pointed out in 2000 that 50 percent of the insured losses throughout the world over the previous 40 years that were due to natural catastrophes had occurred since 1990. Insurers paid $57 billion for weather-related losses in the first half of the 1990s compared with $17 billion for the whole of the previous decade. In July the Red Cross warned that weather-induced disasters had increased sharply worldwide in the late 1990s, from 200 a year before 1996 to 392 in 2000.

In 1998 alone weather-related catastrophes claimed 50,000 lives and cost an estimated $93 billion. Of these losses only $15 billion were insured. Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurers (providing insurance for insurance companies), estimates that climate change could cost more than $300 billion dollars a year in decades to come.

Insurers and Global Warming

 

[MoSurveyor]

so why is there an increased refusal to insure?

The Insurance Climate Change - Newsweek and The Daily Beast

While some insurers are charging higher premiums due to concerns about climate change (which is most likely based on assessment of risk, rather than cashing in on people's fear) many are withdrawing from the market where there is an elevated risk du to extreme weather events associated with climate change.

its been going on for a while ....

Insurers and Global Warming

Yeah, when insurance companies start taking note I pay attention. Scientists can be wrong or their theories incomplete but insurance companies base everything off of pretty darn accurate actuarial tables and there's no getting around those.


Maybe the people in Europe don't know what the IIHS is or how it's effected traffic and vehicle safety, especially in the US. That's where I first learned about insurance companies and their constant chasing of profit. Reduce risk, which reduces cost and increases profit - that's SOP.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

 

[marywollstonecraft]

Yeah, when insurance companies start taking note I pay attention. Scientists can be wrong or their theories incomplete but insurance companies base everything off of pretty darn accurate actuarial tables and there's no getting around those.


Maybe the people in Europe don't know what the IIHS is or how it's effected traffic safety in the US. That's where I first learned about insurance companies and their constant chasing of profit. Reduce risk, which reduces cost and increases profit - that's SOP.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

I had known AGW was an issue for a long time, but in 2007 I found out that the commercial reality of climate change was already beginning to bite, and the insurance industry was starting to take it seriously.

people can ignore what is happening elsewhere, they can whinge about heat waves while pretending it is part of a normal cycle, they can jump up and down about carbon taxes and pretend its political, even if their insurance premiums dramatically increase they can moan about being ripped off, but when their previously insured property becomes uninsurable, they can't pretend any more.


Insurance - and re insurance - is a pretty hard nosed industry, and premium hikes may not always be warranted, but when the calculated risk leads to a decision not to insure, or to limit the insurance cover offered, its going to be based on sound reasoning ... not alarmist fears.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

"Some still insist that climate change is a hoax, but the vast majority of Americans believe the globe is warming, a new survey finds — and they want to prepare for the worst.


In fact, even 60 percent of climate-change doubters favored preparations, the survey found. Researchers collected opinions between March 3 and March 18 via an online questionnaire, using a nationally representative sample of 1,174 American adults, both English and Spanish speaking.


The survey asked about climate-change beliefs and support for adaptation strategies to help coastal areas cope with the rising sea levels and frequent, intense storms that a warmer world could bring. The results showed that 82 percent of Americans are in favor of preparation."

Even Doubters Want to Prepare for Global Warming | LiveScience

The weather always changes and all you here is that we are in a warming cycle which may be true and preparing for that just makes sense. This does not mean you buy into AGW though so you are attempting to hang your coat on a hook set in jello. I will give you an E for effort.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

Do you keep a spare tire on your car? I do but haven't had a need for one for over two decades.
I would far rather have something and not need it, than need it and not have it.
Think the Boy Scout motto, "Be prepared".

Exactly, I keep fire extinguishers everywhere especially in my saw mill, never had a fire yet but if I ever do....

 

[Catawba]

The weather always changes and all you here is that we are in a warming cycle which may be true and preparing for that just makes sense. This does not mean you buy into AGW though so you are attempting to hang your coat on a hook set in jello. I will give you an E for effort.

Thanks for your uninformed opinion!