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As someone whose floor was flooded, it did not cost £7000. It cost the insurance company £274,000, just to (badly) fix it, then a further £15k in compensation f
by ddek 5y ago
As someone whose floor was flooded, it did not cost £7000. It cost the insurance company £274,000, just to (badly) fix it, then a further £15k in compensation for everything they screwed up on the way, then another £100k for loss of value as a result of their contractors.
The problem with floor flooding is it isn’t the floor that was flooded. The floor is just a symptom. The whole house needs to be stripped and dried after a flood, during which time the house is inhabitable.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoIt's surprising how quickly costs can escalate. One of my neighbours flooded. During repairs they quickly discovered there was asbestos everywhere. I don't know what the costs were but they weren't back home for two and half years.
- ddek 5y agoThere’s a parallel to software here, somewhere. When you take out insurance against an event even if you think you could absorb it anyway, what you’re really insuring against is the costs you don’t foresee. I’m having a ‘build vs buy’ discussion at work which is surprisingly analogous.
- 74ls00 5y agoI find this debate interesting, but I can see this argument being used by both sides. Is your point that you don’t foresee external issues by buying like the supplier going under/the product becoming unmaintained or that you don’t foresee internal issues by building like some critical security oversight?
- ddek 5y agoIt's an interesting discussion, for sure. I'm on the buy side right now, because it's an accounting solution, and I'm scared we don't know enough to build a competing product in a regulated space. We're more legaltech than fintech, so it feels like we'd be committing resources to the wrong place.