Milton

[dhays]

Rereading Ted’s and Dhay’s post there’s an ethical dilemma. All to often where people live isn’t a choice.
I previously mentioned a prior crew who inherited a funeral home and house which his grandfather established near Atlantic City. He lost his house and business and was not made whole. House and business were not Sandy proof. Unreasonable to expect that. With each catastrophe I’m sure there’s similar. ?how to deal with this? It’s different than rebuilding on a coastal cliff

"Play the hand you are dealt", "dance with one that brought you", ect... it would be unreasonable to expect individuals or entire communities to completely rebuild, retrofit, or relocate to mitigate all the current risks we know about. My concern is what happens after a disaster. If folks simply rebuild the same way they did before, that seems irresponsible.

Apparently, only a 1/4 of the Floridians in the areas affected by Milton and Helene have separate flood insurance. This is important because even those that have hurricane insurance may not be covered by the flooding from Helene and Milton. Hurricane insurance covers wind damage and if the wind damages the roof, then it would cover water damage from rain. In other words, hurricane insurance may cover water falling from the sky, but not sea water or fresh water coming from below.

Almost all flood insurance in the US is provided through the National Flood Insurance Program. If folks have this, it covers the building, HVAC, major appliances, carpeting, drapes, and debri removal. Unless an additional contents policy was purchased, flood insurance doesn't cover anything outside of the building, cars, boats, landscaping, or contents of the building.

If the costs to repair the building are more than 50% of the market value of the building (not the property) at the time of the event, then the cities or counties may declare the building "substantially damaged" and require the building to be rebuilt to current flood standards. If the person has flood insurance, then they can get up to an additional $30k to help with bringing the rebuilt/repaired building up to current standards. Keep in mind that the max policy limit for NFIP insurance is $250k for homes and $100k for contents (if you buy an additional contents policy).

So even if you do have flood insurance, which most of the folks in Florida don't have, you still may not get enough paid on your claim to be able to rebuild your house to meet the new standards. Let alone the cost of replacing cars, contents of the house, a place to live in the meantime, etc... FEMA does give grants to help for those in a nationally declared disaster, but the average grant for flooding is only $5,000 yet the average flood insurance payment is about $69k.

Bottom line, even insurance will only cover portion of costs. FEMA grants cover a tiny portion. However, there are other ways that these folks get help. Family, friends, churches, Red Cross, all are helpful. Long term, welfare may be the biggest taxpayer expense for these storms. If folks can't afford to rebuild/replace their homes, they lose a huge asset. This may put tip them over into a low enough income that they depend on Welfare to get buy. This may be the biggest and least obvious cost-sharing of these disasters.

 

[Jeff F]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but FEMA isn't paying to replace people's homes. Most of what they're doing is disaster response, some temporary housing, search and rescue.

FEMA owns the national flood insurance program, which I think is the only flood insurer in FL and many other places.

I haven't been paying much attention, but think they anticipate very high payouts for both recent hurricanes.

 

[PierreR]

Hurricanes were worse back in the 50's and 60's

Please offer a citation. P. To my knowledge this is not true. Compare twenty year epochs if you want and still not true. Of course weather isn’t climate. And climate has changed. 1880-1900 has you beat. Still this is a weather data point not climate.

U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade

The bold is absolutely true but contradicts your earlier conclusions.
I go more by accumulated total energy to hit the us be even that is not accurate due to and extended hurricane season and hurricanes that did not hit the US. I will stand corrected according to the record for accumulated energy. The 50's and 60's accumulated energy was higher but certainly within the margin of error. The entire record of hurricanes is to short and dirty to infer anything.
I put a lot of credence in you opinion on trawlers and cruising but this is not the forum to discuss my views or yours on climate change.

 

[High Wire]

Florida homeowners policies are very expensive. The only policy we could get was Citizens which is some sort of state sponsored corporation. $1000 for $30,000 named storm coverage of an old double wide manufactured home that would not come close to replacement value. IAN demolished the home 10 months after we sold it. I can’t imagine what the cost is for any beach block homes.

 

[Hippocampus]

PS you’ve described ascertainment bias and you’re right this commonly occurs but is usually recognized as such. Classic examples are increased diagnoses of MS, small strokes (lacuna), leukoencephalopathies with the advent of MRI. Or incidence of rogue waves with advances in satellite generated weather data.

Still our antecedents weren’t dumb bunnies. We’re fortunate detailed and likely accurate records of these events once on land do go back quite aways and were preserved at multiple sites. Given they are fairly congruent reliability seems likely high. I have a son in law who is an engineer mostly working in hydrology as it applies to government contracts and planning as well as large commercial project permitting. We’ve had many long discussions about using historical data in the efforts of understanding risk to ground water, water and sewage systems. He makes a very strong argument for the reliability of this data.

 

[Hippocampus]

Pierre please read the IPCC reports then come back to this forum. MMCC is not an opinion.
Yes there’s a variance of opinions about what we should do about it. Feel free to disagree with mine.

 

[mvweebles]

"Play the hand you are dealt", "dance with one that brought you", ect... it would be unreasonable to expect individuals or entire communities to completely rebuild, retrofit, or relocate to mitigate all the current risks we know about. My concern is what happens after a disaster. If folks simply rebuild the same way they did before, that seems irresponsible.

Apparently, only a 1/4 of the Floridians in the areas affected by Milton and Helene have separate flood insurance. This is important because even those that have hurricane insurance may not be covered by the flooding from Helene and Milton. Hurricane insurance covers wind damage and if the wind damages the roof, then it would cover water damage from rain. In other words, hurricane insurance may cover water falling from the sky, but not sea water or fresh water coming from below.

Almost all flood insurance in the US is provided through the National Flood Insurance Program. If folks have this, it covers the building, HVAC, major appliances, carpeting, drapes, and debri removal. Unless an additional contents policy was purchased, flood insurance doesn't cover anything outside of the building, cars, boats, landscaping, or contents of the building.

If the costs to repair the building are more than 50% of the market value of the building (not the property) at the time of the event, then the cities or counties may declare the building "substantially damaged" and require the building to be rebuilt to current flood standards. If the person has flood insurance, then they can get up to an additional $30k to help with bringing the rebuilt/repaired building up to current standards. Keep in mind that the max policy limit for NFIP insurance is $250k for homes and $100k for contents (if you buy an additional contents policy).

So even if you do have flood insurance, which most of the folks in Florida don't have, you still may not get enough paid on your claim to be able to rebuild your house to meet the new standards. Let alone the cost of replacing cars, contents of the house, a place to live in the meantime, etc... FEMA does give grants to help for those in a nationally declared disaster, but the average grant for flooding is only $5,000 yet the average flood insurance payment is about $69k.

Bottom line, even insurance will only cover portion of costs. FEMA grants cover a tiny portion. However, there are other ways that these folks get help. Family, friends, churches, Red Cross, all are helpful. Long term, welfare may be the biggest taxpayer expense for these storms. If folks can't afford to rebuild/replace their homes, they lose a huge asset. This may put tip them over into a low enough income that they depend on Welfare to get buy. This may be the biggest and least obvious cost-sharing of these disasters.

This is a good post and lays out insurance pretty well. The WSJ has an interesting article about how insurance has gotten much pickier about exclusions. I don't know if it's true, but I heard someone say their mom was denied a claim for newr total loss because her house wasn't up to code. I'm sure there's more to it then that, but you get the idea.

In Zone A areas, if damage exceeds 50% of the value of the structure, FEMA regulations require it be brought up to modern codes which includes raising above a certain flood stage. In short, the home is a total loss. There are numerous ways to side step this with multiple contracts but that's the rule.

As far as increased frequency of hurricanes, I did a Google search and fully expected to find an increase. Instead I found graphs like the one attached if you squint hard enough, perhaps there is an increase over the 80-years. If you clip the data and start at 1975 or so, there is a marked increase. But if you go further back, seems to be a bit more difficult to detect a trend. But that's just one quick Google search.

Peter

 

[PierreR]

Pierre please read the IPCC reports then come back to this forum. MMCC is not an opinion.
Yes there’s a variance of opinions about what we should do about it. Feel free to disagree with mine.

I have read all of them. What I cannot find is the justification for CO2 as the cause for Bill Santor's change to AR2 from inconclusive to highly likely.

 

[PierreR]

The discussions about how the flood insurance works in Florida is enlightening. I did not realize that it had caps and that damage beyond 50% was arbitrarily determined. That would seem to apply whether the property was insured or not. The cap of $250k seems very low for flood area A

 

[O C Diver]

FEMA owns the national flood insurance program, which I think is the only flood insurer in FL and many other places.

I haven't been paying much attention, but think they anticipate very high payouts for both recent hurricanes.

Ok, the question then becomes how many millions or billions did they collect in premiums? I had a house in Maryland for 8 years that the lending bank required flood insurance coverage.

So, after some internet surfing, there are roughly 5 million policies (mostly required for mortgages) written in the USA each year. Approximately 1/3 are written by non government insurance companies. 1/3 have premiums between $0 and $1,000. 1/3 are between $1,000 and $2,000. Apparently, the government didn't consult an actuary when determining premiums.

Ted

 

[Jeff F]

Apparently, the government didn't consult an actuary when determining premiums.

Right. They're providing a subsidy to policyholders to shield them from market rates. Same thing has been happening in the state through Citizens.

The feds and state are only in the insurance business to the extent they are because private insurers aren't able or willing to provide coverage at "affordable" rates. It's a big political, economic and social challenge.

 

[mvweebles]

The feds and state are only in the insurance business to the extent they are because private insurers aren't able or willing to provide coverage at "affordable" rates. It's a big political, economic and social challenge.

And that, in a nutshell, explains Florida hurricane and flood insurance. Everyone knows living on a barrier island means getting whacked from time to time. But everyone wants to live there. No one wants to pay the risk premium so the politicians enter the fray to "solve" the problem (as if that ever works).

Peter

 

[dhays]

The discussions about how the flood insurance works in Florida is enlightening. I did not realize that it had caps and that damage beyond 50% was arbitrarily determined. That would seem to apply whether the property was insured or not. The cap of $250k seems very low for flood area A

As was mentioned earlier most of the flood insurance in the US is through the NFIP that is run through FEMA. I think it is sort of a public/private arrangement between FEMA and private insurers but I am not sure. It isn't just Florida. Flood insurance works the same way all across the US.

 

[dhays]

Another twist with Helene and Milton is that insurers are primarily considering Helene a flood event. Milton is both a wind event and flood event. So if you have hurricane insurance, likely it won't pay out much for Helene. Flood insurance would, for the 25% that have it. Milton is a separate event so claims will be judged based on the value of the building when Milton hit. For many folks, the condition of their home, and therefore the value, was much reduced after the Helene flooding. So even if it was damaged in Milton, the amount of the loss would be based on that reduced value. So if you have a $400k house (not property, only the house) that got flooded by Helene which does $150k of damage to the house, and you don't have flood insurance, you are on the hook for the full amount. Then when Milton hit you and say tore off the roof, the value of that house before Milton did the damage was only $250k not $400k.