Taxpayers Pay People to Be Hurricane Risk Takers

Florida wouldn’t be less popular if insurance were properly priced. A lot else would be different

By Holman W. Jenkins. Excerpts:

"today’s rising storm damage is due mainly to more people putting up more expensive and elaborate structures in places where destructive weather is a predictable hazard."

"They do so not least because of the availability of federal rebuilding money, including federal flood insurance that is underpriced and subsidized by taxpayers who don’t benefit from beachfront charms."

"“We call weather-related catastrophes ‘natural disasters,’ ” observed a 2016 Stanford Law Review study, but the losses are often due to “questionable government policies.”"

"But a second effect has also been in evidence for decades: a steady decline in death rates from severe weather."

"Better building codes, better planning, better weather forecasting—all make killer hurricanes less deadly than those experienced by our forebears in the days before man-made climate change."

"In an unlikely summoning of congressional spine on subsidized insurance, even then Americans would build on coastal plains. They would insure their own risks from their personal piggy banks if necessary; they would build more cheaply so they could afford a total loss every 30 years or so.

That’s how Americans survived before federal flood insurance in 1968, shouldering the full cost for the amenities they value. And Americans today are richer and have better risk-management tools at their disposal."