There have been some shows on cable with buyers looking for beach houses in Hurricane Alley, not ever concerned about having the means to rebuild. Probably very popular during COVID shut-in times.
Thats the likely reason for the sale. In 2021 nobody really knew when covid would be over. Better to be isolating at a house on the beach vs stuck in an appt.
Not a good move by NYC…
New York ‘indefinitely’ pauses Manhattan congestion pricing scheme - New York ‘indefinitely’ pauses Manhattan congestion pricing scheme via @FT
Seems like it would have made more sense to reduce the rate rather than delay it indefinitely. Start at $5 instead of $15 and phase it in over 3 years
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Agreed.
Don’t they still have to figure out how to apply it?
I mean, there are going to be pay stations across 60th Street, or every car needs a tracking device? Or only those in the system will be allowed to cross?
Not sure why anyone would voluntarily drive a car in Manhattan. It’s not that big so walking is easy. Subways, which need more security, get people around. Buses are fine.
Probably need to close down two avenues, cut them to one-way with two lanes each for buses only and for emergency vehicles, make the rest sidewalk. AND add that fee.
London’s been doing it for over 20 years by using camera and automated license plate detectors. The implementation shouldn’t be hard. My understanding is that the reason for the delay is that it is hugely unpopular, NJ is planning on suing to stop it, and Jeffries doesn’t want to lose Congressional seats over adding it.
I understood that someone realized it would be very unwise to implement it so close to a challenging election.
The folks who sell license-plate obscuring devices are disappointed.
EZPass if you have it; plate reader and potentially bill by mail if not…if they can read the plate.
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They already have cameras installed over the streets just itching to take pictures.
The insurance industry is now taking a beating from the FT regarding climate change.
I am always amused by these articles now. The Gell-Mann effect is notable.
Free Gift Link below.
The uninsurable world: how the insurance industry fell behind on climate change - The uninsurable world: how the insurance industry fell behind on climate change via @FT
So basically people saying that changes required to counter global warming are too expensive, but by the way our insurance costs are probably going to be much higher than cost to counter global warming in the long run by a lot and we’ll still need to counter global warming?
Yes. And nobody wants to pay for it.
Florida and California are good examples of the problem.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But your right in that nobody does want to pay for it.
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I’m still getting a paywall for that article. Do you have a particular passage that you can quote?
I checked the FT gift link t&cs for that article and apparently its only valid for 3 views.
FT is getting really stingy with the gift links (I have a Premium account so can give out 20/month. It used to be 7-10 views depending on the article)
Here is a new gift link. Should work now.
The uninsurable world: how the insurance industry fell behind on climate change - The uninsurable world: how the insurance industry fell behind on climate change via @FT
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Reading through the comments for the article, I get the impression that a common misperception of the insurance industry is that we just take the long-term average of events and don’t take any notice of more recent trends. That we’re not noticing the recent effects of climate change and that things will stay the same as they have for the last hundred years or so.
One of the first things I was taught was to look for “new normals”. That is, if the last 3 or 4 years had been consistently higher/lower than previous years, to give more weight to the more recent years. One would calculate several different estimates, based on for example, 5 year, 10 year, all years, excluding or not excluding high/low etc. and select the most appropriate estimate based on where it looked like the numbers were trending. Additionally, some of the options gave more weighting to a year based on how recent it was. We certainly are paying a lot of attention to more recent years.
We are responsive as an industry but we try not to be overly responsive - try to react to the signal rather than the noise. As far as actuaries only looking backwards, we’re using similar methods to climate scientists to pick trends - we look at the recent trends, both long-term and short-term and trend them forward.
Of course, our industry also includes regulators and state governments. They respond to voters and voters will sometimes say “please help me rebuild my house”, when that house is in an uninsurable area.
An oldie but a goodie
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Lessons from Brazil: don’t rebuild destroyed houses on flood plains.
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