Insurers want to charge high premiums for risky policies and then pass the losses on to taxpayers.
Climatewire reports:
Members of the reinsurance industry urged Congress yesterday to prepare the country for rising weather perils from climate change. Their warning came a day after tornadoes killed a dozen people in central and Southern states, providing a grim reminder of last spring’s deadly twister attacks.
The collection of reinsurance officials offered general activities that lawmakers could pursue to help address the climbing number of extreme weather events. They include adaptation programs to harden homes from storm damage and participating in an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions.
“The number of natural catastrophes has risen fairly dramatically,” Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, said at an event with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)…
Climate change has been a lost subject this year in Congress, and Sanders, the liberal senator from Vermont, indicated that the insurers’ financial message might resonate with a wider body of politicians.
“One of the great frustrations that I experience is that Congress is not addressing the great planetary crisis of our time, which is global warming,” Sanders said. “For the insurance industry, global warming is not just an abstract concept. It is a matter of dollars and cents.”
Whitehouse, who occasionally makes impassioned speeches about climate change on the Senate floor, said conservative groups are using “propaganda” when they describe climate advocates as “alarmists.”
“These ladies and gentlemen are not alarmists,” he said, referring to the insurers. “They are professionals. They are businesspeople. They have billions of dollars in shareholder capital at stake and they have no room for foolishness in their decisions. They have to live in a reality-based environment.”
Insurance companies are VERY hard-headed; they don’t ‘believe’ in anything they haven’t already *calculated.*
The statement: “The number of natural catastrophes has risen fairly dramatically,” is not an actuarial conclusion but a clever piece of marketing DISGUISED as a factual report. (“Dramatically” is not a number, it is a motivational tool.)
The idea is to get people to pay for insurance policies they will never have to pay out on, and if they can get the politicos and bureaucrats to buy in and guarantee the “no pay out” angle, then it ALL PROFIT for them!
“harden homes from storm damage and participating in an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions”
Those are both Socialist tax agendas, with the statists seeing homeownership as a state taxation point.
“Hardening” against tornadoes & hurricanes could double or triple the cost of a home, which in many areas and for many Americans would make home ownership economically impossible.
The govt should be pushing cheap disposable housing especially in high risk areas, but you can’t tax it very much.
As far as “carbon tax” goes, that’s a euphamism for a “global Socialism tax”.
The market, and the work of actuaries, can perfectly well govern the cost of insurance, as they have in the past. And when their actuaries tell them that the number of extreme weather events is falling, they can price their insurance accordingly.
Not that those complaining to Congress are not insurance companies — they are *re*insurance companies. They insure insurance companies against catastrophic losses that their assets cannot cover. The more fear the reinsurers engender, the more premiums they can charge to insurance companies. And that’s money straight into the reinsurers’ pockets. Sweet!
I can’t prove it, but this SMELLS like collusion between, imo, the warmist-moron, Sandars, (who while labeled as an independent, often espouses ultra-liberal positions, imo) & Witthouse, and the reinsurers. Why doesn’t the Senate armed services cut the funding to DARPA, who may be using space-lasers, imo, to warm columns of air within storm-cells with which to MAKE tornados/increase the power of one forming?! And how is it, that a state can ALLOW trailers,–single/double-wide, for housing in Tornado-prone states, anyway,–the consumer is literally ASKING to have his life-style blown to smitherines, when MOST housing in the Tornado belt,should be POURED, reinforced concrete, heavily bermed, or only accessible through storm shelter entrances. That type of structure will prevent deaths from tornados, unless one is out in it, and are hit by debris. These under-ground houses could be bermed one-two stories,–can be bermed above ground level, and would be MUCH cheaper to heat/air-condition because of only needing to go from 58-degrees to 64-68, only 10 degrees varience, which would make bermed/in-ground homes practical due to WAY, WAY, lower utility costs, over the cost of the mortgage.