Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Insurers Criticized For New Rate Models [Higher rates due to global warming--thanks Al Gore]
WSJ ^ | July 1, 2008 | M.P. MCQUEEN

Posted on 07/01/2008 5:14:15 AM PDT by Brilliant

Scientists say the jury is still out on whether rising sea temperatures will cause more hurricanes to hit U.S. coastlines. Yet some insurance companies are boosting premiums based on assumptions that they will...

Costs for homeowner insurance along the East and Gulf coasts have risen 20% to 100% since 2004, says the Insurance Information Institute... In the three years through 2006, says the institute, property and casualty insurers registered record profits, topping out at $65.8 billion in 2006...

Helping to drive these developments is a little-known tool of the insurance world: Computerized catastrophe modeling. Crafted by several independent firms and used by most insurers, so-called cat models rely on complex data to estimate probable losses from hurricanes.

But regulators and other critics contend that the latest cat models -- which include assumptions about various climate changes -- are triggering higher insurance rates...

In the wake of the punishing 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, many cat models saw drastic revisions. Rather than take a traditional longterm view, some attempted to estimate what might happen in the next several years... The result: big premium hikes and higher deductibles.

Underlying the newer cat models are scientific theories that rising sea temperatures will result in more intense, and possibly more frequent, hurricanes...

Large reinsurance companies, such as Swiss Re and Munich Re, were early converts to theories of global warming and cite warming of the earth's oceans when predicting massive damages from future storms.

"Losses from hurricanes and tropical storms have risen along with sea temperatures," says Eberhard Faust, a climate scientist at Munich Re...

However, scientists remain divided over how that may affect the number and intensity of hurricanes making landfall in the coastal U.S. A few climate experts believe global warming might actually cause fewer hurricanes to come ashore...

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: climatechange; environment; globalwarming; gore; insurance; revenooers; weather
No doubt the have-it-both-ways libs will now complain that the insurance companies should not consider global warming in setting rates.
1 posted on 07/01/2008 5:14:15 AM PDT by Brilliant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

I’m thinking the liberals will just get the vapors over the “obscene profits” of the insurance companies and slap some frilly-named tax on them. Maybe give a few $$$ to New Orleans or something.


2 posted on 07/01/2008 5:18:54 AM PDT by subterfuge (BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS NOW!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
One can hardly blame the money grubbers from taking all they can from the gullible masses.

We have met the enemy ... it is us.

3 posted on 07/01/2008 5:24:21 AM PDT by G.Mason (Duty, Honor, Country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

live on the east coast of florida, just got dropped by state farm after they doubled our rate and depleted our escrow acct. now we have to get inspected and go into citizens due to the age of the house. rate is double what it was. screwed again. at least buy us dinner and give us a kiss first.


4 posted on 07/01/2008 5:24:56 AM PDT by tatsinfla
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: tatsinfla

I’m in Orlando ,, newer house that meets all the codes and am not in a “high wind” area with no chance of flooding (90 foot drop to dried lakebed about 1/2 mile away and I’m getting hit too ,, was dropped by a major a few years ago and am now paying 4x what I should ,,, next stop state run “Citizens Insurance” ,, am I just imagining things or are we all being herded into socialism on this front ...

We need a bigtime class action lawsuit against these insurance bullies ... long term models are the only valid way to predict rates ... using this BS global warming (which the warming people don’t even stand by now) is CRIMINAL.


5 posted on 07/01/2008 5:35:02 AM PDT by Neidermeyer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
Insurance companies do not set homeowners rates. The State Dept of Insurance does.
6 posted on 07/01/2008 5:48:14 AM PDT by laotzu
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant

Another example of how big government creates all the things leftists blame on big business.


7 posted on 07/01/2008 5:49:28 AM PDT by Rippin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
LOL! Another new tax!
8 posted on 07/01/2008 6:08:11 AM PDT by an amused spectator (corruptissima republica, plurimae leges)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Neidermeyer

one way to make rates more affordable would be to allow outside competition from other states. although i am becoming more and more resigned to the fact each day that there really isn’t anything that any of us can do. the rules have been written in such a way that the little people can not change anything. the people in office have seen to that. we keep saying to vote them out but the problem is the rules don’t allow anyone new that would make a change to enter the race becasue it costs to damn much. the only way out of this mess if it keeps going the way it is will be a revolution i am afraid. but then again they have passafied so many of the herd that they will just sit back and take it. ok, off my soap box.


9 posted on 07/01/2008 6:32:44 AM PDT by tatsinfla
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant; Defendingliberty; WL-law; Genesis defender; proud_yank; FrPR; enough_idiocy; rdl6989; ...
 




Beam me to Planet Gore !

10 posted on 07/01/2008 1:06:27 PM PDT by steelyourfaith
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
... her insurance premiums more than doubled to about $2,892 a year

I wish I could say that. My rates in eastern N.C. were: $1100 in 2002, $1800 in 2006, $3000 in 2007, $4000 in 2008 -- and that is not in a flood zone.

11 posted on 07/02/2008 7:40:52 AM PDT by JoeGar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brilliant
Taking action on energy is conceptually difficult. Instead of something that you purchase from far away, local energy production becomes something you help make and distribute to your neighbors. Take the solar panels recently installed on my home's roof.

On a sunny day I can walk down to the electric meter under my porch and watch it spin the wrong way. As long as the sun stays out, the solar panels on my roof make me a utility. It's a sweet feeling, knowing that my neighbor's air conditioner is running off the panels above my head. By their very nature, fuels like solar and wind are diffuse and dispersed: instead of a few people digging or drilling them from the ground, a great many of us can harvest them from the planet's surface.

To really make localized power generation work you need a community. Ask yourself why Japan leads the world in building a decentralized solar-panel energy economy. Because it has so much sun (it doesn't), or because it has so much fellowship? Because it is equatorial (it isn't) or because people feel both an obligation to one another and an ability to trust one another?

12 posted on 07/18/2008 6:55:06 AM PDT by MurryMom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson