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Comment by esalman | Hacker News Reader

Average people are already losing flood insurance in Florida and fire insurance in California. Sooner or later they are going to feel the pinch.

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The average person in California doesn't live near wildfire areas. Seven percent of the population is in a high risk area. Last year 876 structures were lost, or damaged, due to a wildfire. Not exactly moving any needles for the average Californian.

This ignores the impact of wildfire smoke on people, which affects a much larger population.

Your insurance carrier isn’t going to cancel your policy because of smoke

They aren't going to cancel, but at least StateFarm won't renew or sell new homeowners insurance.

While they are the largest in CA, there are 100 home insurance companies operating in California. Also the excuse of wildfire doesn’t make much sense. They also cite high building costs, but policies are priced on how much insurance people buy, so that doesn’t make much sense either. Also, State Farm is renewing, just no new policies.

https://calmatters.org/economy/2023/06/california-home-insur...

Do you not think major insurers like StateFarm pulling out of the market will drive premiums up for the average folks?

More so commenting on that many Californians will notice the impact of wildfires, regardless if they are in an area prone to wildfires.

They already are, but it isn’t yet in your face enough for most. Things like food price increases or insurance woes are readily abstractable or blameable on other phenomena.

There are enough extreme events happening now, however, that it won’t be long before everyone, everywhere, has either been directly affected by or knows someone who has been directly affected by an extreme weather event. This kind of rapid change could be the best hope we have for remedying the situation, as rather than being frogs in slowly warming water, we will find ourselves thrown directly into the skillet.

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