Mostly, this had me thinking about the more general problem of insuring against disasters, like hurricanes, floods, tornados, etc. My pet theory is that as these disasters become more common, and the economy becomes worse, fewer people will be able to afford insurance even as more people lose their homes to various disasters.
And, good god, why is this apparently educated man deluded that the
government will help him? Has he been sleeping thru the aftermath of Katrina?
March 21,2006 | SAN FRANCISCO -- When Charlie Bott got an offer in the mail recently for earthquake insurance, he stared long and hard at the bottom line. Then he threw it away.
"It was way beyond anything you pay for house insurance. Not even in the same league," said Bott, a nuclear engineer with a baby on the way.
Now, like millions of others, he is hoping that the Big One doesn't strike, and if it does, that the government will come to the rescue.Californians have built vast metropolises atop seismic faults, but 86 percent of the state's homeowners have no quake insurance, a proportion that has crept upward as memories of past quakes fade. The number of uninsured was about 65 percent in 1996.
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8GG4VH82.html
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