Warming oceans make parts of world ‘uninsurable’, say insurers

[n2doc]

By Alistair Gray and Pilita Clark in London


Insurers have issued a rare warning that the speed at which the oceans are warming is threatening their ability to sell affordable policies in a growing number of places around the world.

Parts of the UK and the US state of Florida were already facing “a risk environment that is uninsurable”, said the global insurance industry trade body, the Geneva Association.



They were unlikely to be the last areas with such problems, said John Fitzpatrick, the association’s secretary-general.
He said governments needed to invest more in flood defences and tighten building restrictions in risky locations to mitigate the fallout from extreme weather hazards, citing losses from superstorm Sandy, which struck particularly hard in New York and New Jersey last October and cost the economy about $65bn.

“Governments may have fiscal austerity issues in the short run. But in the long run they’re going to have big exposures – to repair damaged infrastructure from storms.”

more
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/be95e1f2-dcde-11e2-9700-00144feab7de.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fworld%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct#axzz2XEAugJmN

[dipsydoodle]

1. Hardly surprising

given that insurance is risk based on probability. Not much point in insuring a certainty.

[malaise]

2. This

“Governments may have fiscal austerity issues in the short run. But in the long run they’re going to have big exposures – to repair damaged infrastructure from storms.”

Duh!!!!

Get thee to the greatest page!

[Junkdrawer]

3. Escalating food prices, water shortages and uninsurable sacrifice zones will be the early effects..

of climate change.

Worse is in the wings....

[progressoid]

4. But did ya hear about Kim and Kanye's baby?

THAT's news.

[WinkyDink]

5. I'm 63, an Only Child with no offspring. I.e., no cards in the long OR short game. But WHY aren't

PARENTS or hope-to-BE-parents up in arms over reports such as the OP's?

I don't get it.

[CrispyQ]

8. Consider the source, but here was Dennis Miller's take on this several years ago:

(paraphrasing)

I won't be around or know my great-great-grandchildren, so why do I care if the planet is 2 degrees warmer then?


I remember this, because when I heard him say it, my jaw hit the floor. I no longer think it's a unique point of view.

[Skittles]

10. must have been after he became a right-wing whore

[VWolf]

11. So, shortly after birth, then? n/t

[Skittles]

20. I must be old

because I swear I remember a time when he was fairly cool

[VWolf]

21. Yeah, me too. I was just being snarky. n/t

[Skittles]

22. LOL

it does indeed seem like a lifetime since he crossed over

[CrispyQ]

13. Probably so.

When I watched his show on HBO, I thought he was funny. Regarding racism, he once said, "It's stupid to hate someone for the color of their skin, when if you spend just five minutes talking to them, you'll find plenty of valid reasons to hate them!"

[WinkyDink]

17. I assure you I CARE, but it's an impersonal care, as opposed to what I would think be at least

SELFISH reasons on the part of others to be more than concerned.

[Junkdrawer]

6. The Washington Consensus and the Truth are not within hollering distance of each other....

on just about every issue you can imagine.

And the lower level government/corporate employees who, by necessity, do rub shoulders with the Truth are now under Top Secret security oaths.

A marvelously perfect system of institutional blindness is in place. Prepare to be blind-sided over, and over, and over......

[KurtNYC]

7. I have been looking off and on for years for models which show

which areas will decline in value and inhabitability versus those that will remain more stable or even improve. It is easy to get maps showing the impact of rising sea levels but models of extreme weather events seem more difficult to come by.

Some models show that Argentina/Chile are nearly immune to the changes.

"Failure to plan is planning to fail."

[Divernan]

14. Sell Florida property while there are still climate change denying fools around

to buy it. I attended a presentation by the head of Florida's state emergency system, back in the mid 90's. He had a map of the state, with overlays showing paths of the major hurricanes. Not an inch of the state went unscathed. He then talked about how low-lying Florida was, and how the limestone base allowed surge waters to push up even in the middle of the state.

From the Rolling Stone article:

Even worse, South Florida sits above a vast and porous limestone plateau. “Imagine Swiss cheese, and you’ll have a pretty good idea what the rock under southern Florida looks like,” says Glenn Landers, a senior engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This means water moves around easily – it seeps into yards at high tide, bubbles up on golf courses, flows through underground caverns, corrodes building foundations from below. “Conventional sea walls and barriers are not effective here,” says Robert Daoust, an ecologist at ARCADIS, a Dutch firm that specializes in engineering solutions to rising seas.

What that means is that while sea walls and barriers may protect NYC, Baltimore, Boston and the like, there is NOT A DAMN THING AVAILABLE TO SAVE FLORIDA.

[dotymed]

19. Then bush, rice and cheney should be fine with all of the land they bought in Argentina...

how comforting

[Locrian]

9. good article in Rolling Stone on Miami

Goodbye, Miami
By century's end, rising sea levels will turn the nation's urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620

You would never know it from looking at Miami today. Rivers of money are flowing in from Latin America, Europe and beyond, new upscale shopping malls are opening, and the skyline is crowded with construction cranes. But the unavoidable truth is that sea levels are rising and Miami is on its way to becoming an American Atlantis. It may be another century before the city is completely underwater (though some more-pessimistic­ scientists predict it could be much sooner), but life in the vibrant metropolis of 5.5 million people will begin to dissolve much quicker, most likely within a few decades. The rising waters will destroy Miami slowly, by seeping into wiring, roads, building foundations and drinking-water supplies – and quickly, by increasing the destructive power of hurricanes. "Miami, as we know it today, is doomed," says Harold Wanless, the chairman of the department of geological sciences at the University of Miami. "It's not a question of if. It's a question of when."

[TexasTowelie]

12. All locations in the world are insurable. The question is how much premium do the insurers charge.

There appears to be adequate capacity in the reinsurance market based upon newspaper articles I read. The former insurance commissioner of Texas met with reinsurance officers in Bermuda and they stated that they are still willing to provide reinsurance support to insurers that write policies in Texas even though the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association has inadequate reserves if a hurricane hits the Texas coast.

Headlines like the one in your OP provide the opportunity for lobbyists to present anecdotal evidence to request premium increases from insurance officials. Insurance corporations, governmental entities and elected officials all benefit by increasing rates.

[randr]

15. Complicit in the disinformation campaign?

How many of the insurance executives and the people sitting on their boards have been in denial for the past 30+ years?
If any of them have any connections to the petro industry that has successfully promoted an atmosphere of denial they should be removed at once.
How is it that they failed to do risk management analyses over the last 30 years and are just now wakening to the situation.
Leaders of industry that have failed to heed the climate warnings need to be outed and replaced with new management willing to address our situation immediately.

[sorefeet]

16. My brother in Florida

can't get hurricane insurance and my friend in Montana just had his rates raised because we are now in tornado alley, which is bullshit.

[sofa king]

18. God's Waiting Room to be Relocated

Where will it go now that half of Florida shall sink beneath the waves before the end of the century? Someplace that rarely gets cold, with a government already full of conservative rubes who can be easily bought and coerced in such a way that developers and insurers shift all the costs to the state and keep the profits for themselves. The state has to be a little crazy, too, and cannot be entirely safe, or the security industry will be left out.

Arizona.