The fires

My soft spot for heritage buildings now involves more than lugging out cast-iron tubs, dealing with tubes and knobs (other than in the comment section) and saving punky pine floors. The cost of insuring an old pile in this country has become, well, historic.

But there’s a bigger threat than age. It’s location. And climate. Parts of Canada and swaths of the States are becoming totally unaffordable for homeowners, or being declared uninsurable by the industry. As you know, no insurance means no mortgage – yet another threat to our insane real estate market and fetish.

Los Angeles is on everyone’s mind at the moment. It’s apocalyptic. Over 10,000 homes incinerated – some of them among the world’s poshest, in idyllic spots. The wildfires continue, turning into ash not only residences by the entire urban infrastructure.

And this is LA. Total urbanity in the world’s richest country. It’s not a northern mining town with a volunteer fire department sitting in the middle of boreal forest. The LA fires, like recent ones in Europe, show this is a threat anywhere, anytime. And seemingly more frequent. The last price tag estimated in southern California is $150 billion. Somebody has to pay that. Rest assured it won’t all be coming from the insurance dudes. They’re leaving town.

Think about what’s happened lately.

In the States the LA inferno comes a few months after the deadly, massive flooding in the Carolinas caused by Hurricane Helene. She killed hundreds and left $200 billion in damage. It will be years yet before the cleanup’s done.

And how about the 70,000 cars that were pelted by Trump-sized hail in Calgary recently? That cost insurers a billion. A fifth of the city’s homes were damaged, resulting in 130,000 claims worth almost $3 billion, and impacting recent property assessments. One day. One place. That was the second-costliest disaster in Canadian history, exceeded only by the incineration of Fort Mac in 2016. That burned two thousand houses. Then there was Jasper last summer. The toll there was 33,000 hectares and about a billion in fire damage.

There’s more. A once-in-100-years rain event swamped Toronto in July, for example. The subway became a river. Last summer most major roads in Nova Scotia were destroyed by historic flooding after a spat of historic fires threatened Halifax. Commuters crawled around wecked bridges for weeks on narrow regional roads.

More than $7 billion in catastrophic losses were recorded this past summer in Canada. That’s four times the 20-year average. Also, needless to say, the most ever. As we heard this week, 2024 was also the hottest year in history for the planet. In the last ten years, the average cost to insure a house here has increased by 76%. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, Mr. Google tells me, premiums have swollen by 90% and 106% respectively. Losses that are insurable are up 379%. But true losses far exceed that.

So what’s happening?

Premiums are exploding. Insurers are withdrawing from some areas. They have new demands before coverage is extended. Homeowners are being told to install sump pumps, for example, prior to being granted coverage for water-related claims.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada says there were 228,000 claims here in the past year. No prior year even came close. No greater amount of money has ever been paid out. And you can bet the number of properties that qualify for insurance will be going down while policy costs escalate. The current situation is unsustainable.

Unless, of course, the Trumpers, neocons and deniers are correct. There is no climate change. The wokesters made it up to enslave you. God just hates Calgary, LA, For Mac, Miami, Athens, Jasper and the TTC.

So you can look after all this in the next election. Good luck.

About the picture: From Los Angeles yesterday. “A dog barks as the Eaton Fire destroys a neigbhorhood Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)”

To be in touch or to send a picture of your beast, email to ‘garth@garth.ca’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2025/01/13/the-fires/