Anthropogenic Global Warming ... how hot is it ?

[sear]

"My understanding is that if the house in question had been in the open it (probably) would have been okay. It was the surrounding houses that caused the problem." S2 #159

Yes. My guess (based upon insufficient information) is the original "hurricane proof" label may have been related to resistance to wind-load. That's obviously not enough. btw

If you'd like something to lose a little sleep over within the category of insufficiently engineered structures:

decades ago I encountered a report about a primary U.S.' federal "level 4 containment" facility where we keep beasties like smallpox.
The report indicated the level 4 component was resistant to problems such as low level Earthquake, but still vulnerable to a large quake, or a meteorite strike, or perhaps even a terrorist attack.

We have a tendency to think even though there's a statistical risk, in practical terms there really isn't that much to worry about.
But then we're confronted with the result of such slothful ignorance, including the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Those playing with fire risk getting burned.

"legislation he hopes will quell an exodus of insurers bailing their business out of California and ...." #160​

"Politics ain't bean-bag."

 

[Shiftless2]

Shiftless2 said:

"legislation he hopes will quell an exodus of insurers bailing their business out of California and ...." #160​

You can't expect insurers to sell policies at a loss - that is they have to be able to collect enough in premiums to cover claims and expenses as well as make a (surprisingly small) profit.

 

[sear]

"You can't expect insurers to sell policies at a loss - that is they have to be able to collect enough in premiums to cover claims and expenses as well as make a (surprisingly small) profit." #162

Well stated.
Not to dwell on it, but to explicitly exclude it, another explanation here could be insurers collectively conspiring / colluding to opportunistically profiteer.

I don't know what the $profit margin was then or is now. It's easy to deduce AGW is shrinking that margin.
$BUT !
It's a mistake to static-model. Are there not also some simultaneous (partially or fully compensatory) expansions to insurance profits?
One example that comes to mind:
in the 1960's insuring a car was a tedious process involving the applicant sitting down at a brick-&-mortar insurance office face to face with an insurance agent, and filling in a form (in triplicate?), covering such details as engine size, etc.
Today I suspect applicants can complete the application on-line, including such detail as the VIN # which has the relevant detail such as number of doors, number of horses, etc.

I'm open-minded about splitting the baby on the dotted line the way humanitarian vivisectionists do.
But in the absence of information I can't be certain.

layman's PS
Increasing sample size from 3% to 6% approximately doubles the accuracy. Right?
Actuarial tables are based on statistical probability. Right?
Insurers have more information upon which to base their actuarial predictions. Right?
So doesn't this more precise information allow for lower risk in lower profit margins for insurers? Why?
A sensible incentive for insurers to set $premiums to higher profit level is to defray the cost of unlikely (and therefore unanticipated) disaster (claims).
Hasn't insurance experience in the past half-century, along with more precise computerized information helped sharpen the actuarial pencil a little?
Bottom line, AGW may be pressuring insurance profits lower. Though probably not 100% equal (compensatory), are there not also evolutionary efficiencies nudging profit margins in the opposite direction?

 

[Shiftless2]

One example that comes to mind:
in the 1960's insuring a car was a tedious process involving the applicant sitting down at a brick-&-mortar insurance office face to face with an insurance agent, and filling in a form (in triplicate?), covering such details as engine size, etc.

That was easy - just met with the agent or broker (they're not the same thing) answered a few questions and then signed the relevant form. And didn't even have to do that at renewal. But I do have to say that the last time I bought a car did everything on line - the dealership sent the info to my broker and that was it. Pretty much all I had to do was provide the broker with a copy of my drivers license and a "no-claims letter" from my previous insurer.

Increasing sample size from 3% to 6% approximately doubles the accuracy. Right?

No. It's not that simple. (And it's not linear.)

First define what you mean by improving the accuracy . If you think about forecasts (insurance claims, election results, or whatever) you'll generally see a footnote that says the results are accurate within plus or minus 5 percentage points or some such. And there's a "confidence level" associated with that - typically 90 or 95 percent. That simply means that if you took another sample of the same size the results would fall within that range (i.e., the plus or minus 5 percentage points) 90 percent of the time. Hope that makes sense so far.

So if you want to improve the accuracy of the forecast you have to decide what that means. Suppose your current forecast has a plus or minus 5 point spread 90% of the time. Do you want to decrease the range - i.e., make it plus or minus 2.5 percentage points say but leave the confidence level at 90% or do you want to leave the spread at plus/minus 5 points but increase the confidence level to 95%?

And then there are some weird ones - one of the ways for an insurance company to model next years losses is to estimate frequency (the number of claims) and severity (claim size). Multiply the two of those together and you have an estimate of the total claim costs (i.e., the total amount of loss dollars the company will have to pay).

Standard practice is to assume that the number of claims follows some sort of bell curve (most common is to use a Poisson or negative binomial distribution) and for severity a lognormal or similar curve. In any case, the end result is that the distribution of losses will also look somewhat like a lognormal curve (the "small end" of the distribution can be ignored because that's what happens when there are no claims).

Now for the weird bit. Consider two insurance companies with virtually identical books of business. Same geographic areas. Same types of policies and policy holders. So you'd expect them to have similar loss experience - that is, if you graphed their expected losses they'd have very similar curves. Now combine those two companies (e.g., one buys the other) - no change in standards or anything else. So you'd expect the results of the combined entity would look like those of the individual companies but more tightly clustered (there are twice as many insureds so makes sense). Funny thing is, it doesn't work that way. A couple of us (myself and another qualified actuary) spent an entire morning trying to figure out what was going on - if we used @risk to model the result that didn't happen. We finally gave up and a called an old grad school classmate (he was now Chair of the Math Department at a major university) to see if he could shed any light on the matter. While he raised a couple of valid questions (for example, is the sum of lognormal curves still lognormal) we never did get a satisfactory answer.

 

[sear]

"That was easy - just met with the agent or broker (they're not the same thing) answered a few questions and then signed the relevant form. And didn't even have to do that at renewal. But I do have to say that the last time I bought a car did everything on line - the dealership sent the info to my broker and that was it. Pretty much all I had to do was provide the broker with a copy of my drivers license and a "no-claims letter" from my previous insurer." S2 #164

In the mid-70's to buy a new car someone (often a dealership employee) had to physically travel to the DMV, and wait in line to obtain license plates to get the new car on the road.
I gather between then and now, that administrative burden has been removed from the DMV. Now, the license plates are kept at the dealership. Or that's the impression I got in a recent narrow escape from a local dealership.

I don't mean to over-simplify, or suggest incremental efficiency improvement fully compensate for AGW. Intended point, neither side of the equation is static.

 

[Shiftless2]

DeSantis signs Florida bill making climate change a lesser state priority​

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill making climate change a lesser priority under state law and banning offshore wind turbines near the state's long coastline

Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state's lengthy coastline.

Critics said the measure made law by the former Republican presidential hopeful ignores the reality of climate change threats in Florida, including projections of rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe storms.

It takes effect July 1 and would also boost expansion of natural gas, reduce regulation on gas pipelines in the state and increase protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor's office.

DeSantis, who suspended ...

CONTINUED

 

[sear]

DeSantis signs #166​

I get the strong impression DeSantis would sell out his own mother if he thought it would result in his own personal gain.

 

[Shiftless2]

THE HURRICANE FORECAST KEEPS GETTING DARKER​

The latest puts the chances at 75% that a major hurricane will make landfall in Florida this year, for the first time since 1992.
Paul Carroll

As we near the June 1 official start to the Atlantic hurricane season, we seem to be facing the worst of both worlds.

We've been in an El Niño weather pattern for almost a year, which leads to warmer waters off the west coast of Africa, where hurricanes form, and in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf waters where they gather strength. The waters have already reached temperatures that they usually doesn't hit until August and will only get hotter from here.

The good side of El Niño is that it tends to disrupt the winds that coalesce into the tropical storms that can become hurricanes... but we're moving into a La Niña pattern, which lacks the storm-preventing tendencies of El Niño.

So we're looking at all the heat energy provided by El Niño but none of its protection from hurricanes.

In advance of this week's official forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the June 11 update from Colorado State University (CSU), Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist at CSU, laid out how very bad--perhaps $200 billion-in-insured-losses bad--the outlook is.

We've suspected for some time that this hurricane season would be bad. (Here is what I wrote back in February.) But now the predictions are moving well past suspicions. "We’re very confident this year we’re going to see well above normal hurricane activity," according to ....

CONTINUED

 

[Shiftless2]

Home insurance costs could surge even higher as states brace for 'hurricane season from hell'​

Story by Breck Dumas

Homeowners insurance premiums have been soaring in the U.S. for years, but residents of some coastal states could see rates surge even higher due to expectations that 2024 will be an active year for hurricanes.

Forecasting service WeatherBell Anayltics is predicting a "hurricane season from hell" this year, estimating that five to eight hurricanes will hit the U.S., with three to five expected to be "major" disaster events.

Insurance comparison website Insurify pointed to that predication in a recent report and added its own data indicating how home insurance premiums could be impacted in hurricane-prone states.

"If there’s a surge in the number and intensity of hurricanes, insurance companies would face higher payouts for property damage, business interruption, and other related claims," said Jacob Gee, an insurance agent, quality assurance specialist, and knowledge facilitator with Insurify. "This would likely lead insurers to reassess their risk models and adjust ....

CONTINUED

 

[sear]

"Home insurance" #169​

On the ground.

And in the air:

One Dead and Dozens Injured After ‘Extreme Turbulence’ on Flight​

A Singapore Airlines flight from London was diverted to Bangkok, where more than 70 people were being treated for injuries.

One Dead and Dozens Injured After ‘Extreme Turbulence’ on Flight

A Singapore Airlines flight from London was diverted to Bangkok, where more than 70 people were being treated for injuries.

www.nytimes.com

"Man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok." Confucius

 

[Shiftless2]

 

[Shiftless2]

Flooding threatens 1 in 6 Texans, state plan concludes​

By Alejandra Martinez The Texas Tribune

More than 5 million Texans, or one in six people in the state, live or work in an area susceptible to flooding, according to a draft of the state’s first-ever flood plan.

The plan by the Texas Water Development Board is an effort to reduce the risk for those people by recommending solutions to harden Texas against floods and rising sea levels. The board was required to create the plan in a 2019 state law passed in response to Hurricane Harvey.

The public can make comments on the plan during a meeting ....

Flooding threatens 1 in 6 Texans, state plan concludes

More than 5 million Texans, or one in six people in the state, live or work in an area susceptible to flooding, according to a draft of the state’s first-ever

thefacts.com

 

[sear]

"Flooding threatens 1 in 6 Texans" #172​

And now for the bad news:
a few of them can swim.

 

[Shiftless2]

Vermont is going to make fossil fuel companies pay for climate change damage​

Other states are already eyeing similar legislation, but the oil and gas industry is pushing back​

Sheena Goodyear ·

Almost a year after intense flooding in and around the capital city of Montpelier, Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a share of the damage caused by climate change.

It's high time the companies most responsible for climate change pay for the damage it causes, says environmental advocate Ben Edgerly Walsh.

Walsh is the climate and energy program director with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. The non-profit environmental and consumer advocacy group has been pushing for legislation to force fossil fuel companies to shoulder some of the costs dealing with climate change.

On Thursday, the group achieved its goal when Vermont became the first state to enact such a law.

"The reality is they are the ones responsible for ....

CONTINUED

 

[sear]

You can't expect insurers to sell policies at a loss - that is they have to be able to collect enough in premiums to cover claims and expenses as well as make a (surprisingly small) profit.

Seems to me government has a role here.
- Do not award building permits for building on a flood plane.
- Update building codes so buildings don't bankrupt insurers.
- etc.

Vermont​

- Live free, or drop dead -

 

[Shiftless2]

#175 - if government's role is restricted to amending building codes etc that's one thing. If they start paying for losses (effectively providing insurance) then all they're doing is having other taxpayers subsidize those who choose to build on floodplains etc.

That's not to say that a "federal backstop" of some sort shouldn't be in place - that is a "fund" of some sort that will take over excess payments if/when a disaster is so bad that all the commercially available insurance and reinsurance is exhausted - think of it as an extra level of reinsurance provided by the gov't. The sort of catastrophe that would trigger that would be something like a cat 5 hitting Miami or going Long Island and then continuing straight up the Hudson (don't laugh - 30 plus years ago that latter was one of the scenarios generated by one of the early cat models). Or the big California earthquake - the one were Las Vegas becomes a west coast city.

 

[Shiftless2]

Believe it or not, as temperatures rise hailstones get bigger ....

Massive hailstorms keep hitting the U.S. Here’s why.​

Baseball-sized hail hit the Denver region Thursday night, the latest storm in what “has not been a quiet hail year.”

By Scott Dance

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/06/01/hail-storm-damage-denver-texas/

 

[sear]

#175 - if government's role is restricted to amending building codes etc that's one thing. If they start paying for losses (effectively providing insurance) then all they're doing is having other taxpayers subsidize those who choose to build on floodplains etc.

... and such compulsory subsidy is a horrendously bad idea. Basic utilitarianism opposes it.

"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits." Thomas Jefferson

Even if there was a reciprocal benefit for highlanders I'd oppose this. As a general principle government should be minimized.


"Grapefruit-sized hail" #177

Photos, vids, etc ....

Notice the resemblance?
Coincidence ?!

 

[Shiftless2]

... it's likely that premiums will continue to increase into 2025 "as natural disasters like hurricanes only grow more frequent and damaging,"

'Hurricane Season From Hell' Could Make Parts of Texas Uninsurable​

Giulia Carbonaro
"hurricane season from hell" this year, as forecasting service WeatherBELL Analytics described it, could upend the vulnerable Texas home insurance market, experts told Newsweek.

Weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expect this year's Atlantic hurricane season—which officially kicked off on June 1 and will end on November 30—to be particularly active. They forecast a range of 17 to 25 named storms, of which eight to 13 are expected to become hurricanes, four to seven of which could be major.

"I fully expect to see a landfalling storm in Florida this year, with another in Texas or Louisiana, but I am hopeful that it is not a name we will remember like Andrew, Katrina, Ike or a few others," Charles Nyce, department chair and a Dr. William T. Hold associate professor of ....

"Hurricane season from hell" could make parts of Texas uninsurable

A potentially devastating hurricane season could send Texas home insurance premiums skyrocketing.

www.newsweek.com

 

[sear]

"Could Make Parts of Texas Uninsurable" #179​

Oklahoma !
Lock the door!
Turn out the lights!
Stay quiet!
If any one knocks tell them: "Nobody's in here."

Perhaps that way Texas' insurance refugees will flea to Mexico.

<>

Still haven't quite figured it out. Texans have earned for themselves a reputation as national braggarts. Everything's bigger in Texas. Macho. Right?
Then why for this dubious distinction did they pick a State with a pan handle ?!