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There is a set limit on it though...The policies are ALL administered by NFIP...They cap it at $250K/$100K. The federal government doesn't need to be in the business of underwriting insurance policies for wealthy people that make the choice to live where God can sneeze and blow their house away. I drive around coastal North Carolina and see all of these $1 Million homes that people park their cars under...they have to build way up for hurricanes.
As I understand it, they cover water damage that isn't from a flood no problem. If the wind/hail rips your house apart and the rain ruins it, you're covered. But, the storm surge when the levee breaks? Not so much.
There are set limits today. And we the people or elected officials can change the limits. To any number.
if every house in the US was destroyed, we could find/create the money necessary to rebuild 100%. Our limits are and have always been based on resources and productivity, not USD.
JONOV said it perfectly above.....If the damage was due just to wind only than that should be covered under a regular homeowners insurance policy, but it would be a fine line if water was also involved. Water damage would need to be covered under a flood policy. So the insurer would assess the damage and only cover the part of the home damaged by wind.
Some say insurance is a gamble. You're paying for something "just in case", but if you don't have insurance and an event happens it could be devastating financially!
Yep... I was just making a point.
It was like a friend that collected in Loma Preita Earthquake for a fire... the earth rumbled and his house caught on fire... he had no earthquake but recovered quite nicely due the fire...
IMO, all insurance companies are merely legal ponzi schemes that cannot sustain themselves if they actually covered what they say they do. There's no way you can charge someone x amount per month (we'll say $500) and cover them for $50k+ in insurance claims. It would take 8 years of you paying into it to equal $50k, and they still have to pay their employees, advertisements, overhead, etc, so it's not possible for them to do so.
So what they seem to do is try to weasel their way out of paying any claims brought against them. "Oh, well x happened so we can't cover that" or "Oh, you didn't tell us about that, this claim is null and void". They MUST do this in order to stay in business. Then they throw in deductibles and other loopholes in order to further protect themselves and give them MORE reasons to deny your claim, or at least pay you the bare minimum that they can. Basically an insurance company wants free money from you for years on end only to deny your claim whenever the need to use that insurance arises.
Can someone please explain to me how insurance is not a glorified ponzi scheme?
You're really all over the place with your argument.
I think that you're just so far short of general basic knowledge on the topic that we can't fix it in a message board.
Sounds like maybe you passed up on buying flood insurance and are now upset about it? Take it up with your insurance agent. Anymore they make you actually sign a paper saying that you were offered flood insurance and turned it down because they kept getting sued by people that didn't want to pay the premium and then got flooded.
P.S. I did love it when you referenced deductibles as a loophole. That made me chuckle.
You're really all over the place with your argument.
I think that you're just so far short of general basic knowledge on the topic that we can't fix it in a message board.
Sounds like maybe you passed up on buying flood insurance and are now upset about it? Take it up with your insurance agent. Anymore they make you actually sign a paper saying that you were offered flood insurance and turned it down because they kept getting sued by people that didn't want to pay the premium and then got flooded.
P.S. I did love it when you referenced deductibles as a loophole. That made me chuckle.
No this isn't a personal issue for me, as I live up north and haven't been affected by the hurricane.
As Leisesturm already pointed out, the word I should have used in my OP was "racket" instead of "pyramid/ponzi scheme".
In modern parlance, any situation where a corporation profits at the real-or-perceived expense of the customer/client, is tarred with the accusation “Ponzi Scheme”. In reality, there are many rapacious and unscrupulous ways of shaking down the customer, that have nothing to do with Ponzi. And there are many high-profit, high-fee schemes, that are perfectly aboveboard and legal. One such example is loaded mutual funds, where the client is charged a percentage of assets immediately upon deposit.
The inherent problem with insurance, is that everyone pays, but only a few actually benefit. Even if my insurance company is honest, the rates are low and the customer-service is polite, I can go for decades as a homeowner, dutifully paying my premiums, but never collecting, because I never sustain an incident that merits a claim. The whiff of “Ponzi” comes from the association of some paying but others collecting. Instead of Ponzi, a better analogy is the parable of the prodigal son. The “good” son dutifully stays at home, doing his father’s bidding. The prodigal son collects on his half, then has the temerity to return, and the father throws a feast, welcoming his errant son back to the family. When the good son complains about unequal treatment, the father shuts him up, telling him in effect to count his blessings, instead of begrudging the blessings of others. Insurance, in effect, favors the prodigal son.
The other problem with insurance is that it’s mandatory. At least with Obamacare, one can opt out, paying the fine for lacking coverage, taking the risk. For automotive insurance and homeowner insurance, this generally is not possible, at any price. Short of starting my own insurance company, I can’t self-insure my cars, at any price. I don’t have the privilege of paying an annual fine to the state or county, in exchange for receiving permission to go without insurance.
Lacking insurance, is like a reverse lottery: you save a bit of money every day, in exchange for potentially sustaining a catastrophic loss. Personally, I’d take that bet. I would play a reverse-lottery, where every day the state sells me a $5 ticket, with the understanding that if there is a “winning” number, I might receive a $100M bill for anti-power-ball. I would take this bet, because the expected-value (in the statistical sense) is positive. But there is no such reverse-lottery.
Yes it is. You can send the state $25,000 (whatever the liability coverage requirement is) and they will sit on it until you need it, buy an insurance policy, or move out of state. You can drop homeowner's insurance if you don't have a mortgage (very bad idea but it is an option). If you have a mortgage, the bank requires insurance because they don't want to have a loan on a burned-down house, because you will probably stop paying.
The reverse lottery is a good example. It needs just one tweak to it, though, which is that you can't say "I promise to pay" should you 'win'; like automobile self-insurance, you need to put up the money first. Then if you 'win', your money is gone. But would you really do this? Similar to dropping homeowners insurance on your house, who cares if you're ahead by 5% on average... is that worth risking your life savings?
i hope to never collect on my policies for anything . insurance is just a way of mitigating risks that in the small chance they happen to you they would be financially devastating to you .
statistics don't matter to humans as we only have 2 outcomes that can happen . crap happens to us or it doesn't .
someone is on the bad side of things always . is it you ?
Given that you've somehow won both 5k and 500 for your posts, yeah, he's probably already on the bad side of things.
No this isn't a personal issue for me, as I live up north and haven't been affected by the hurricane.
As Leisesturm already pointed out, the word I should have used in my OP was "racket" instead of "pyramid/ponzi scheme".
No industry is 100% perfect. Surely people have been burned by shady companies or their representatives....or bought the cheapest coverage not really understanding what was and wasn't covered and so forth.
My friends spouse worked in claims and I can't tell you how many people have screamed at them because they wanted something covered that wasn't like they bought liability coverage only and then got hit by an uninsured driver.
People want cheap coverage, but then want everything covered when THEY have the claim....and when it isn't they start calling it a racket.
Great example would be all the people after Katrina suddenly claiming flood should not be excluded, but they'd turned down the chance to buy it. No doubt they claimed how they'd paid in for years but then when it flooded they were being cheated.
Insurance is one of the most heavily regulated industries, especially with regards to coverages everyone buys like home, life, auto. Prices require pre-approval from the state, how fast they make payments is regulated, all kinds of stuff.
If you'd like to more specifically explain the source of your rant then I'd be happy to discuss it. It seems that you're beef is with denial of what you feel are valid claims?
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