The New York Times looks at our national policy of paying to rebuild vulnerable coastal communities, no matter how ill advised their developments might be. In effect, we’ve encouraged people to upscale their beachfront shanties into expensive vacation homes, increasing the value at risk next time a storm hits. As the seas rise, ever more money will be sent down this gopher hole. Instead, we should prohibit future development, map out the most vulnerable locations, and draw up buy-out offers ahead of time, so when disaster strikes, it can be used as an opportunity to re-direct investment into less risky areas.
Tag: insurance
Climate Change and the Insurance Industry
http://flickr.com/photos/that_chrysler_guy/8139133299/
As the entire eastern seaboard slowly recovers from its lashing by Sandy, insurance companies are bracing for the hurricane’s aftermath and the possibility of another Katrina-scale loss. If there’s any major incumbent business with an incentive to publicly acknowledge the risks and costs of climate change, it’s the insurance industry, and especially the re-insurers — mega-corps that backstop individual insurance companies by pooling their risks globally. These companies can do the math, and what they’ve seen over the last couple of decades is a steady upward trend in both the number of extreme weather events and the resulting insured losses that they’ve been on the hook to cover. The situation is well summarized in a new report from Ceres, entitled Stormy Futures for U.S. Property/Casualty Insurers. They suggest that insurers face an existential risk from climate change.
Links for the week of September 17th, 2009
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Continue reading Links for the week of September 17th, 2009
Links for the week of September 11th, 2009
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Continue reading Links for the week of September 11th, 2009
Shared Links for Apr 17th
- Health Reform Without a Public Plan – A short outline of how healthcare works in Germany: with pooled risks, and income-based premiums, but without a government administered healthcare system. There are more models for "socialized" healthcare out there than Americans realize, and they don't all involve a wasteful bureaucracy. (tagged: health medicne insurance policy politics socialism )
- How to Look Like a Grown-Up While Biking to Work – Can it really be true? Has New York become so bikeable that normal people riding simple, functional do-everything bikes are about to take over and make bicycle culture just plain old culture? I'd like to believe it. (tagged: bicycle transportation culture urban design cycling )
- Use of Linux constitutes probable cause? – Computer expertise and use of a command line now apparently warrant seizure and search of all your electronic devices, on the Boston College campus anyway. What a crock! (tagged: technology politics security linux police privacy law )
- Points on a sphere – There's no perfect way to specify N regularly spaced points on a sphere, but there are a few different ways to get close I'm going with the golden section spiral (tagged: python math programming science research sphere )
- He Doesn’t Let the Money Managers Off the Hook – Of all the myriad failures of our capitalism, the willful collusion of shareholder representatives in the mismanagement and looting of their own companies has not gotten much airtime. This is why I use Vanguard. (tagged: investing vanguard bogle finance capitalism )