L.A. fire losses will set records, but that's only the beginning Risk experts believe the insured losses from the Los Angeles wildfires will easily top $20 billion, but in some ways that's only the start of the crisis California now faces. Why it matters: Anything above $12.5 billion would pass 2018's Camp Fire to become the biggest insured wildfire loss ever, per data from insurance brokers Aon. Economic losses will be substantially higher, perhaps tens of billions of dollars more. Stunning stat: At the high end of the range, the L.A. fires would be near the list of the 10 costliest natural disasters in global history by inflation-adjusted insured loss, per data from the Insurance Information Institute. https://www.axios.com/2025/01/11/los-angeles-fire-insurance-losses-billions
The other wild thing financially is we are likely going to see another top 10 costly financial disaster when the cascadian subduction zone finally gives way completely remaking the coastline from British Columbia to Mendocino, CA - likely causing catastrophic consequences to Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland. That’s a “in our lifetime” event depending on how young you are. …not to distract from the disaster at hand, but to say at some point we run out of money to rebuild in these spaces nature is reclaiming from the West Coast to New Orleans to Florida. It would seem unless there is a noticeable change to how we start rebuilding the thousands of structures that have been destroyed this week AND the infrastructure, then we are just doomed to have this happen again.
I think insurance will still exist but it will be very specific. Like, your Florida or California home is insured against a meteor strike or a bison attack but not against wildfire, flood or storm damage. Seriously, home insurance as we knew in, at least in CA, is probably done. And these fires are far from over, sadly.
To be honest this is a construction problem from my perspective. Fires in SoCal is almost like flooding in Houston. It’s been happening forever. Then add on earthquakes on top of that. Insulated concrete forms (ICF) and concrete should be relied upon out there. ICF is comparable to stick built homes in cost but it’s just different with the wall thickness so design has to adjust. They are also very sturdy during earthquakes and essentially fireproof. Builders don’t really like going outside of what they know though. ICF builds are also very energy efficient too. It’s a really obvious and practical option that’s been around for years now but I doubt it gets any traction. I’ve seen people ripping property and casualty insurance companies for being greedy (not saying you were though). People don’t realize those companies don’t make money on insurance premiums. They generally lose and break even on insurance premiums. They make their money off financial products for the most part. If they are going to be legally obligated to provide insurance then it’s going to be really costly because they already lose money as is. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the major insurers out there as well as the general public that was uninsured or underinsured.
California spent all of their time and efforts preparing for an attack by Manbearpig and not enough time preparing for the arson attacks by unhinged climate change activists. Most of this was preventable if California wasn't so California.
I didn't even think about it until last night when I was talking to someone from San Diego but hopefully all the ash stays out in the ocean. She said years ago when SD had bad fires there was inch thick ash all around her neighborhood.
I couldn't imagine making monthly mortgage payments on a pile of ash. That's a nightmare. Also, people now hate Mandy Moore for some reason.
Any sort of monolithic construction is great for fires and floods but not necessarily for earthquakes. ICF in this case would help combustibility but the moments it would create during an earthquake are potentially bad. Northridge completely changed the way earthquakes are approached when it comes to buildings and why California buildings need to be built more elastic in nature with pin/roller connections and less rigid connections like we have here. You could theoretically design it to function but the connections themselves would need to be analyzed in what sort of moments their designed for and who would certify said connections. Like this isn't something a company like Simpson could do but rather a specific engineer for a specific house. Each house is different and the pull from the exterior walls or shear walls would snap it during a high intensity quake. Quakes don't give a **** about concrete, steel or wood. They care about the elasticity of your connections, the weight of what its throwinf around and your weakest point. Here we're rated to 150MPH sustained gusts and above a specific flood zone (500 year used to be 100 year). I don't design in California but I'd imagine that the structures are designed for specific sustained moment intensity and the weight of a concrete wall is significantly more intense than that of a wood frame or aluminum framed wall. A wet toothpick can hold less weight than a dry one but it'll be harder to snap.
ICF construction is highly resistant to earthquakes. If you have any studies that indicate otherwise it would be fun to read. I'm not going to proclaim to be an expert but my quick research and ChatGPT conversation indicated it is simply a superior form of construction. Damage to ICF buildings was substantially lower and building repair times were significantly faster. Here's a study done by the USRC. https://www.nrmca.org/wp-content/up...Apartment_Building.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
I'm an architect and have to do CE every year so I hear all of the guys pitching their new wall structures and how they're better than this or that. Usually the cost of construction is astronomical so nothing ever really takes unless there's some sort of mandate. I've seen these before (there's actually a building in Champions that used this that I had to visit). The issue isn't necessarily the material itself but the labor force required to install it. Also banks and insurances don't really know it as well so they may not want to loan for it or insure it. This country would often times rather risk and rebuild than to be proactive about things. There would need to be a case study done on a commercial structure that uses this vs conventional materials and also seismic tests testing the connections. Even if the costs could get within 10% or so it's still too hard a sell. At the end of the day building has to cost X so it can return a profit. People always do what's in their best interests so if a similar building is charging more but it uses "different materials" that are whatever....people don't care. They'll always take the cheaper rent. I've been dealing with this in Houston on detention and the egg carton looking parking lots you see sometimes in town. Some young hip Tesla driving hotshot will ask me about it and I'm like....just don't do it. Try and find a spot that has detention already handled.
There's been articles posted on this forum projecting out of control forest fires across the Pacific states sending ash plumes towards the east coast. I still remember the fires in the 00s where the LA SD region was darkened by smoke for a good week. Felt like an eco doom movie that was popular then.
The best architect to ever exist...... Death Wish FTW The worst architect to ever exist.... Albert Speer.
