Coastal Flood Insurance

Actually start worrying when insurance companies start refusing to insure properties there against flooding. Estimating risks is their bread and butter, they will know.I’ve actually discovered (from the Yale “Financial Markets” MOOC) that US government uses mandatory insurance to get people to move out of areas which are likely to be flooded, etc. USG makes the insurance mandatory, and insurance companies, quite predictably, price just about everyone out. People either pay through the nose or

Insurance isn't an endless bucket of money, and it's also going to adapt. Eventually you just won't be able to get insurance for properties in areas like that. Just look at the floods in New Orleans or the current flooding along the east coast of Australia, I doubt there's enough money to make all those affected whole again.I think insurance may be the main driver for when people actually decide to move. People are pretty resilient, but if you can't get a home loan be

In theory, yes hundreds of billions (maybe trillions of dollars) in houses and building need purchased and destroyed in the US.This will not happen. Houses/businesses near beaches tend to be of higher value and owned by the more politically connected. Any political talk of "We're not going to insure it and we'll let it fall in the ocean" means new people getting elected next election.It's also worse than that in the US. We're permitting and allowing thing

Everbody in USA already pays to subsidize flood insurance for rich people who insist on building houses on the coastline.

perhaps disaster prone areas shouldn't be worth a lot?

I dunno, it does seem reasonable to me. Including your (albeit too wide) statement.I refuse to live in a flood plain. Why would you? Not only do i not want my house to be destroyed, but the insurance alone is a good incentive to not live there.If fire repeatedly pops up in my neighborhood i'll do the same thing, move. Why wouldn't you?If the insurance would be insane because statistically it's likely to repeatedly happen why should taxpayers fund that sinkhole? I&#

They don't need to abandon their homes, but those homes are becoming uninsurable without heavy subsidies (like FEMA flood insurance). Houses should simply not be built in many of these places.

I've always wondered about that simply from the hurricane risk. It seems the hazards of the coastal areas are subsidized by the rest of us. Even in this article we find this atrocity:"The effects of climate-driven price drops could ripple across the economy, and eventually force the federal government to decide what is owed to people whose home values are ruined by climate change."Nothing is owed to these people. The sea has always been a hazard. Ocean levels have always flu

Well, any changes in sea level and habitability will be a mix of very gradual shift in tidal patterns and acute high-impact flooding events. Areas will not suddenly go from habitable to inhabitable all at once.In the US, it is very expensive and sometimes impossible to procure insurance for areas at extreme risk of wildfire or flooding. This is essentially the private market's assessment of risk based on location. Most people will leave if they are unable to reasonably insure their homes

No, the point is - flood insurance (on a floodplain) is so expensive people simply don't get it. You can say people should leave if they can't afford it, or they should suck it up and buy it, but it's not going to happen. The USA has the same problem - you couldn't get people to move from New Orleans (until they were actually washed away), San Francisco (an earthquake zone) or Seattle (there's a massive tsunami waiting to go off there any time in the next millennia).People are stupid.