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Those asking might want to have a chat with Florida residents, who have a completely ideologically opposite state government and have the same situation, but wi

Those asking might want to have a chat with Florida residents, who have a completely ideologically opposite state government and have the same situation, but with flood insurance. Some risk has to be socialized or no one can live anywhere safely.

riku_iki 2y ago
It's not about ideological side, but about group of people having power monopoly and abusing it without consequences. Specifically, current CA governor having close relationship with state wide electricity provider and allowing to hike rates to whatever level they want.
- seesaw 2y ago
  As an example, my power is generated by one company and distributed by PG&E. I pay $57 for power generation and $140 or so for distribution. PG&E reported close to [1] $2.5B profits for last year. My bills have been going up for $50/month to over $400/month in the last four years. [1]. https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/02/15/pge-profit-electric-gas-utility-fire-economy-bay-area-oakland-san-jose/ https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/02/15/pge-profit-elec...
gruez 2y ago
>Some risk has to be socialized or no one can live anywhere safely. Why can't people pay for their own risk?
GenerWork 2y ago
>have the same situation, but with flood insurance It's not flood insurance (that's federal), it's hurricane insurance, which is technically wind. I feel that Florida is a bit ahead of California due to the larger insurance price increases. That being said, we're not out of the woods yet, but the reforms from a few years ago seem to be making some progress.
tfehring 2y ago
Insurance requires risk transfer but that's different from cross-subsidization. It's fine for 100 equally flood-prone houses to all pay the same insurance premiums even if only 1 of them floods in a given year. But people in a less flood-prone area, all else being equal, should be paying less for flood insurance. The alternative (aka the status quo) creates market distortions, making it artificially cheap to live in flood-prone areas and encouraging more building there. Plenty of people would still live in those areas even if they were paying actuarially fair prices for insurance. And lots of places are safe enough from natural disasters that they're affordable to live in without cross-subsidization - in fact, eliminating cross-subsidization would make most people's cost of living go down, at the expense of a minority of people who live in very high-risk areas.

riku_iki 2y ago

It's not about ideological side, but about group of people having power monopoly and abusing it without consequences. Specifically, current CA governor having close relationship with state wide electricity provider and allowing to hike rates to whatever level they want.

seesaw 2y ago
As an example, my power is generated by one company and distributed by PG&E. I pay $57 for power generation and $140 or so for distribution. PG&E reported close to [1] $2.5B profits for last year. My bills have been going up for $50/month to over $400/month in the last four years. [1]. https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/02/15/pge-profit-electric-gas-utility-fire-economy-bay-area-oakland-san-jose/ https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2025/02/15/pge-profit-elec...

gruez 2y ago

>Some risk has to be socialized or no one can live anywhere safely. Why can't people pay for their own risk?

GenerWork 2y ago

>have the same situation, but with flood insurance It's not flood insurance (that's federal), it's hurricane insurance, which is technically wind. I feel that Florida is a bit ahead of California due to the larger insurance price increases. That being said, we're not out of the woods yet, but the reforms from a few years ago seem to be making some progress.

tfehring 2y ago

Insurance requires risk transfer but that's different from cross-subsidization. It's fine for 100 equally flood-prone houses to all pay the same insurance premiums even if only 1 of them floods in a given year. But people in a less flood-prone area, all else being equal, should be paying less for flood insurance. The alternative (aka the status quo) creates market distortions, making it artificially cheap to live in flood-prone areas and encouraging more building there. Plenty of people would still live in those areas even if they were paying actuarially fair prices for insurance. And lots of places are safe enough from natural disasters that they're affordable to live in without cross-subsidization - in fact, eliminating cross-subsidization would make most people's cost of living go down, at the expense of a minority of people who live in very high-risk areas.