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In California, the city of Laguna Beach incurred a landslide and 19 multi-million dollar homes were uprooted and destroyed.
Insurance companies don't provide homeowner protection for landslides! But insurance companies and local government DO provide every other kind of coverage for this same house.
Property taxes are higher when a home has a stunning vantage point of the surrounding community. Directly because the home has been built on hill of some sort, the home's value is higher and therefore insurance cost more. The government provides it's services and collects more property tax because of the increased value of the home as it sits on the side of a hill. Yet when times are tough, and a landslide happens, the homeowner is left all alone, left to still pay off the mortgage and property taxes on a home that no longer exists!
It just doesn't seem right.
What I don't like is how everyone profits from these hilltop homes at risk before a landslide happens, but after a problem occurs, the insurance companies and government abandon ship.
How about a new law, that any home that is not elegible for ALL KINDS OF insurance coverage be pooled into a special wildcard insurance fund, the funds for this wildcard insurance fund would be skimmed from the insurance company profits and all of these homes would then be elegible for coverage from landslides.
My plan gently motivates the insurance company to rethink their position, because if they don't offer direct landslide coverage to the homeowner, the homeowner could then just raid the profits the insurance company generates anyways.
Is this idea anti business? Heck no! Because before the landslide, the homeowner is required to pay full pop for all other kinds of coverages and taxes. It's important that as a society we don't only support people when they are high on the hog but then let them twist in the wind when times are bad.
My idea balances out the system.
The philosophy behind this idea is don't just take the top half of the muffin, the easier money, and leave the bottom half of the muffin (after a landslide happens) to the homeowner to deal with.
If an insurance company is willing to offer partial types of insurance coverage but not full insurance coverage, why over reward the insurance company when they only offer insurance where they make the most profit?
Lets forget the wildcard insurance fund idea and instead simply transfer all the insurance profits the insurance company makes from all hilltop homes over to those homeowners that lost their home in a landslide.
Fair enough? I think so.
It's insurance bean counting spin talk that prevents financial help from coming forward from those who have not been been victimized by a landslide to those who have. [img]graemlins/thumbs_down.gif[/img]
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 03, 2006 12:06 AM: Message edited by: Alex ]</font>
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Here's an example of how to help the landslide victims.
Lets say there are 10,000 homes in California built in areas where landslides are possible.
Those homes have vastly increased value because of their hillside locations. The state charges more for property taxes, Insurance companies charge more for the insurance coverage they do offer to the homeowner living on a hillside because of increased property value.
Ergo, the insurance companies are in this TOGETHER with the homeowner whether they want to acknowledge it or not.
The key now is to add up all the premiums this collective group of homeowners living on hillsides have paid into the insurance pool in the past year, subtract all claim money paid out, and see what percentage of money is still left.
If it turns out that those 10,000 homes generated 100 million in premiums, and only 50 million went out to cover losses, then the Insurance companies have a comfort zone in which to pay off some or all of the landslide damaged homes.
It's that simple.
Other creative ideas the insurance agency could incorporate, insure hillside homes for the value of the home in a NON-LANDSLIDE AREA.
If the home ever gives way, the insurance company would be liable for the value of the home as if it were built in a more "normal" locale.
These ideas don't require a brain surgeron to come up with, yet they aren't currently being used, and it's one more way the insurance companies stick it to the little guy while pocketing money that really doesn't belong to them.
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ October 30, 2006 04:04 PM: Message edited by: Alex ]</font>
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Very logical.My ex wife worked for an insurance company that specialized in home construction.There were counties in southern California they wouldn't touch.
