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C-Man

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by C-Man

  1. Oh, it's a Band-Aid on a hatchet wound no doubt but I don't know what can be done for people living in areas like California or Florida (Texas ain't far behind). You can't make companies offer insurance to high-risk properties. Climate change, or whatever you want to call it, is a thing. It has increased the number of catastrophic weather events that effect this country exponentially in the last 10+ years and it shows no sign of letting up. We've all felt rising insurance costs directly if you own homes and/or vehicles. Florida enacted unprecedented updates to building codes post-Andrew and that's been extremely helpful. But there are still structures that pre-date 1991 that just hadn't been hit until more recently. Not sure how you engineer things that are impervious to fire. Most of the HNW carriers have wildfire defense systems in place that are free of charge. They closely monitor wildfires and if they have an insured structure in the path, they will send their private firefighting teams out to do all they can to save the property. They move shit around, cut back vegetation and other things. Then they'll water yards and structures. The last-ditch thing is they spray a flame-resistant/retardant foam all over the house that is highly effective. Then after the fire goes past, they come in and hose the foam off. They obviously don't have the capability to handle all homes. This might be getting way into the weeds but insurance companies will look at risks pretty closely in high wildfire risk zones. Carriers and builders alike have reverse engineered homebuilding techniques to cut back the threat of flying embers igniting nearby structures. Soffits/eaves have been redesigned -- my understanding is they used to almost suck up embers like a vacuum and that area would just ignite. But, again, I don't know how you make something that is completely fire-resistant. My wife's cousins grew up and lived in Northern California (Sacramento/Chico area). Her female cousin's home burned completely in either the Shasta fire that killed like 300 people 5-6 years ago or one of the other ones from a few years after that. Her male cousin's home outside Chico was miraculously the only house on his street -- one of the few in town that didn't burn down in fires last year. He had pretty severe smoke damage though. These homes pale in value to what's burning in LA right now, which is why this is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. I'm seeing estimates of $60B in potential losses now. That is an industry-altering figure.
  2. According to this, Trump pushed hard for Maria Baritromo as VP this summer before Susie Wiles put the kibosh on the idea. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14264131/Trump-Maria-Bartiromo-VP-running-mate-J-D-Vance.html
  3. So, who was that who read the “Tribute written by VP Walter Mondale”?
  4. TIL Walter Mondale is still among us EDIT: Apparently he’s dead. This is what I get for having TV on with the sound off and The Musers streaming on delay. Not sure what I saw now! [emoji1787]
  5. Depending on the carrier, they'll likely just say we can't afford the claims at a certain point and declare insolvency. If they're admitted carriers, they're backed by a state fund that promises to pay claims. It will take forever to get everybody paid and it will not be pleasant. Depending on the exposure of a carrier like State Farm, I don't know what we're looking at. Much of what is burning now is high-end stuff. The luxury carriers have really dialed-back capacity substantially in the last five years but they're still on a lot of high-end residences in SoCal. I'd be shocked to see any kind of government bailout beyond what is guaranteed by any state fund. The carriers themselves will be insolvent. Just about all of this. AIG basically pulled out of California entirely. They were WAY over-exposed in CA. The company said it needed to take like a 60% rate increase in one year just to get their heads above water but couldn't. By the time they got that 60% over nine or so years, they'd be even further behind than before. So they said fuck it, we're out. Looking like a smart decision tonight. The FAIR plan is all some of the properties can get. There are limits. My understanding is that the state guarantees to pay all claims no matter what. But, residential properties are limited to $3M per location (not sure if that's for the dwelling or if that's TIV for one residence -- dwelling, personal property, other structures, etc). I worked on two opportunities for primary-Dallas residents this past fall. They both own homes in Montecito/Santa Barbara, which has been basically uninsurable for anything other than the FAIR plan. One property we quoted at $15M for dwelling and that was probably shooting pretty low. Quoted the first guy's annual premium with Chubb Custom's special carve-out capacity reserved for our firm alone was like $225K or something with a $500K wildfire deductible ($10K for all other perils including fire that starts within the confines of the home). Not sure what his FAIR plan premium was but it wasn't anywhere close to that. This guy is a billionaire several times over and somebody many on here would recognize. We pared things down -- cut the personal property entirely and increased deductibles and got the annual premium down to $175K-ish but he still didn't want it. If his house burns down, it's a rounding error in his portfolio so he passed. He'll still own the dirt but at some point, that loses value after events like this. (Somehow he got his property designated as "commercial" which gives him $6M in coverage vs $3M for residential. The second guy is loaded too but nowhere near the other guy. His place is worth $5.5M or so. We quoted $5M with the same deductibles and his annual premium was $92K. I asked if he'd send me his FAIR plan, which he did. He's paying about $12K annually for $2.7M for his home and about $3M TIV. I was going to go back to Chubb and ask to remove some stuff, increase deductibles but I doubt they will even respond in the wake of the last 36 hours. Needless to say, he didn't take our first offer. Maybe he's more inclined now with the current fire situation. Maybe not. California has probably passed Florida for hardest place to find insurance with this wildfire event. Florida is even more of the wild west. So many carriers there you've never heard of just trying to time things right -- sell a bunch of policies and hope and pray for some quiet hurricane seasons. If they time it right, they cash out before having to pay big hurricane claims. If they time it wrong, they just go insolvent and a bunch of folks are left holding the bag.
  6. Where's the ejaculating @THUJONE dick?
  7. I get it. Out of 40-something games, some will be fun watches. the SCar-Illinois game got nasty and it was enjoyable. But Cam Ward "peaced out" at halftime of a game after setting a record. North Texas started a kid at QB who hadn't started a football game since like 9th grade. These games aren't to be taken seriously. Many teams have substantial numbers of key players from the season who do not play because they're transferring or heading to the NFL. I'm not complaining -- I still watch them. What else am I going to do during the holiday season? Hang out with my family? Pretend to work?
  8. Ratings might be the same but the games mean next-to-nothing. Players have opted out or entered the portal. This is a huge reason why the CFP could expand to even 16 and I'd be happy as that increases the number of games where teams are actually playing for something. Seems like there were tons of games with the entire upper deck of large NFL stadiums that were completely empty. They're nice background noise to have on TV during the holiday season. Hell, I'm almost to the point that we should maybe exclude bowl results in a team's record if they're not playing in the playoff -- unless it's aggy and they lose, of course. They're glorified early spring games at this point.
  9. Musk Vaulted to the Top of a Popular Videogame. Everyone’s Asking Where He Found the Time. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/elon-musk-videogame-diablo-tesla-spacex-4233b5b9 In addition to a "blood boy" it appears Leon has a "Diablo IV boy"
  10. https://www.threads.net/@aaron.rupar/post/DEikuMWgFjJ?xmt=AQGzhcAw4y1Cwb_VJWEw0YZY8HvutCF6UtHUhnu0Jxsckg
  11. Man, I haven't hardly seen any 2024 released movies yet. Saw Dune 2 at the theater. Waiting for Saturday Night to hit NetFlix this weekend. Same for the Jesse Eisenberg/Kieran Culkin flick. Watched The Fall Guy -- was that 2024 or 2023? Have Beetlejuice 2 on DVR -- will watch soon. Want to see the Dylan movie at some point.
  12. Bat. Shit. Crazy.
  13. I like Junes. Super nice guy IRL. But I love all these HSO's about how this expanded system sucks based off the first year it's been used -- and it's not even over yet. At an absolute minimum is that it will shut up the teams like SMU or Boise or Indiana about not getting their shot. Well, they got it -- albeit they had to go on the road -- and they all lost. The Final Four is about as "helmet school" as it can possibly get with four absolute titans of the game facing off. Notre Dame has 11 national titles, Ohio State has eight and Texas and Penn St have four apiece.
  14. Montana has a giant kicking the onside kick
  15. This Mellot kid is pretty fucking salty
  16. Is it free on Apple? I looked last week to see when it was coming free to the streaming service and I think it’s on Netflix starting this weekend or early next week.
  17. Some really, really important shit.
  18. Love this dude. “You better not!” https://www.threads.net/@brentterhune/post/DEfOvbCubHA?xmt=AQGzPySiimY_A4_NQLxa0gd1iAcoe6eya4M5Y7erkl_O8w
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