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It's not quite that simple. Insurance is a financial product and social construct. It depends on market conditions and supply and demand as much as pure actuari
by supertrope 3y ago
It's not quite that simple. Insurance is a financial product and social construct. It depends on market conditions and supply and demand as much as pure actuarial risk. The scientific consensus is that disastrous climate change happens over generations. They project out to 2100. What used to be a 100 year storm (1% probability per annum) might now have 3% probability per year due to rising ocean levels, and warmer oceans providing more energy. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-climate-change-is-loading-the-dice-for-more-perilous-hurricanes https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-climate-change-is-load....
In Florida the biggest factor in the market death spiral is actually excessive litigation not hurricanes. Regulations require insurers to pay to replace a damaged roof not pay for the depreciated value. Florida customers file 80% of the insurance lawsuits in the whole country but they are obviously not 80% of the customers. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2021/04/14/609721.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2021/04/14/6.... Roofers who chase storms will sell customers on signing over assignment of benefits to them and they will file the lawsuit for them.
The recent rise in interest rates has made insurance a less attractive capital sink. Why buy a disaster bond or invest in reinsurance when sovereign or investment grade corporate bonds yield 5%? Over long periods of time return on equity must keep up with interest rates. The trickles down to reinsurance costs for insurers and finally higher premiums and pickier underwriting for you and I. In a previous insurance market cycle a bad year of storms ironically was followed by lower reinsurance prices. Why? Because interest rates were low and there was strong competition between reinsurers.