7 ms·

20+ years ago, I had moved into a newly built home. And the first serious rain we got, I had water come into the living room (flooded the porch and seeped under

by chiph 2y ago

20+ years ago, I had moved into a newly built home. And the first serious rain we got, I had water come into the living room (flooded the porch and seeped under the door). There was no insurance coverage since it was "surface water" and thus excluded. So I had to use a shop-vac and rent a couple of blowers to dry it out. There was a ditch out back but it obviously wasn't deep enough. I did the math and ended up with an astounding amount of water flowing by (something like 20,000 gallons per minute[0]) and complained to the builder about it. They sent a couple of guys out there who installed two 4" corrugated drainage pipes and said it was good enough. When the next big rain happened, where those pipes emptied out there was a 3 foot tall fountain of water from the pressure. It was an amateur Bellagio, lol. The yard still flooded but luckily didn't come into the house again. Since then, the landscaping came in throughout the neighborhood which controlled the runoff. But it taught me a lot of respect for getting slopes & drains right - Always use a larger pipe than you think you'll need. [0] The formula seems to be: V = 0.408 × Q/(D^2) where V is velocity in feet-per-second, Q is the flow rate in gallons-per-minute, and D is the diameter of the pipe in inches. I estimated the diameter based on the land profile that was underwater, and timed the velocity by following twigs/leaves floating by.

SonOfLilit 2y ago
You probably got a bit higher number than the true one, because water flows faster the farther it is from the floor/wall, and leaves float so they move like the fastest water, not the average water.
486sx33 2y ago
This is called “overland water” and “overland water coverage” in insurance speak. It is usually not even offered as additional coverage.
- alliao 2y ago
  I've visited Lloyd's Building on a building tour once, and seeing the scale and sheer floors of actuaries with PhDs in god knows what domain made me a firm believer in the real life prowess of the insurance industry. I honestly don't think consumer insurance is worthwhile, but commercial definitely if you have an equally capable team of actuaries to run the numbers and they stack up to cover the risks involved.
  - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
    Sure but all these people are there to ensure the insurance will get ahead, not to help the customers. One of my friend works in reinsurance and his favourite joke is that every time the insurance company pays a claim, someone is getting fired. Obviously a joke but it seems to paint a fairly accurate picture of how the business is run.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      As I understand, a lot of property and casualty insurance companies are structed as "mutuals" (not sure the exact term). And, most of the annual profit is refunded to customers. They are basically run as non-profits.
      - zie 2y ago
        Technically true, but the people in charge are not the customers. The people in charge(C-Suite) have zero incentive to ever refund any annual profit. They have all the incentives in the world to ensure their compensation just happens to suck up any and all annual profits. Who is going to stop them? Vanguard(the brokerage) is structured the same way pretty much, except it's the various mutual funds(like VTSAX/VTI) that own the larger corporation. So far the infection of c-suite salaries continually growing larger and larger hasn't gotten to Vanguard yet, but they are now a few CEO's removed from the original founder(Jack Bogle), so it's probably about time that shift starts to happen.
        throwaway2037 2y ago
        > The people in charge(C-Suite) have zero incentive to ever refund any annual profit. This makes no sense. Well run mutuals regularly refund part of insurance premiums each year. For example, in 2020: > USAA, the country’s fifth largest property-casualty insurer, will be returning $520 million to its members. Ref: https://newsroom.usaa360.com/news/usaa-to-return-usd-520-million-to-members https://newsroom.usaa360.com/news/usaa-to-return-usd-520-mil... If what you say is true, why did they return any money at all? They could easily pay that to C-suite and senior execs in huge bonuses. Also, to clarify, the correct term is "mutual insurance", which Wiki describes as: > A mutual insurance company is an insurance company owned entirely by its policyholders. It is a form of consumers' co-operative. Any profits earned by a mutual insurance company are either retained within the company or rebated to policyholders in the form of dividend distributions or reduced future premiums. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance
- chiph 2y ago
  I checked my policy and they use the "surface water" term. So it's probably something that varies by company and perhaps region. To get a flood policy you would have to speak to a broker about whether you qualify for the National Flood Insurance Program. They won't issue a policy to you directly.

by chiph 2y ago

SonOfLilit 2y ago

You probably got a bit higher number than the true one, because water flows faster the farther it is from the floor/wall, and leaves float so they move like the fastest water, not the average water.

486sx33 2y ago

This is called “overland water” and “overland water coverage” in insurance speak. It is usually not even offered as additional coverage.

alliao 2y ago
I've visited Lloyd's Building on a building tour once, and seeing the scale and sheer floors of actuaries with PhDs in god knows what domain made me a firm believer in the real life prowess of the insurance industry. I honestly don't think consumer insurance is worthwhile, but commercial definitely if you have an equally capable team of actuaries to run the numbers and they stack up to cover the risks involved.
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  Sure but all these people are there to ensure the insurance will get ahead, not to help the customers. One of my friend works in reinsurance and his favourite joke is that every time the insurance company pays a claim, someone is getting fired. Obviously a joke but it seems to paint a fairly accurate picture of how the business is run.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    As I understand, a lot of property and casualty insurance companies are structed as "mutuals" (not sure the exact term). And, most of the annual profit is refunded to customers. They are basically run as non-profits.
    - zie 2y ago
      Technically true, but the people in charge are not the customers. The people in charge(C-Suite) have zero incentive to ever refund any annual profit. They have all the incentives in the world to ensure their compensation just happens to suck up any and all annual profits. Who is going to stop them? Vanguard(the brokerage) is structured the same way pretty much, except it's the various mutual funds(like VTSAX/VTI) that own the larger corporation. So far the infection of c-suite salaries continually growing larger and larger hasn't gotten to Vanguard yet, but they are now a few CEO's removed from the original founder(Jack Bogle), so it's probably about time that shift starts to happen.
      - throwaway2037 2y ago
        > The people in charge(C-Suite) have zero incentive to ever refund any annual profit. This makes no sense. Well run mutuals regularly refund part of insurance premiums each year. For example, in 2020: > USAA, the country’s fifth largest property-casualty insurer, will be returning $520 million to its members. Ref: https://newsroom.usaa360.com/news/usaa-to-return-usd-520-million-to-members https://newsroom.usaa360.com/news/usaa-to-return-usd-520-mil... If what you say is true, why did they return any money at all? They could easily pay that to C-suite and senior execs in huge bonuses. Also, to clarify, the correct term is "mutual insurance", which Wiki describes as: > A mutual insurance company is an insurance company owned entirely by its policyholders. It is a form of consumers' co-operative. Any profits earned by a mutual insurance company are either retained within the company or rebated to policyholders in the form of dividend distributions or reduced future premiums. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_insurance
chiph 2y ago
I checked my policy and they use the "surface water" term. So it's probably something that varies by company and perhaps region. To get a flood policy you would have to speak to a broker about whether you qualify for the National Flood Insurance Program. They won't issue a policy to you directly.