The wild fires we have seen happening in Los Angeles have been shocking to view and one can only feel for the home owners. Over the coming weeks we will learn how costly this is going to be with estimates ranging between $15 and $20 Billion with the total economic loss north of $150 Billion.
With 5 different fires all happening at once this is total carnage and with early reports suggesting there have been 12 000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Insurance companies that cancelled policies a few months back dodged a bullet as if we think of our own properties that have two separate policies being buildings and then contents. This is a double whammy if the entire building has burned to the ground.
The stats being handed around now are quite staggering with the average price of property in the Palisades area being $3.1 million. Residents who could not get insurance had the option of joining the Fair Plan which according to stats 1 in 7 homes had taken up. The Santa Clara southern region had roughly 66 renewal cancellations per 100 policies which is mind boggling.
I do not know how you can end up with no insurance and can imagine this is with properties that have been fully paid off. Having a bond or mortgage on a property the lending bank insists on having insurance. I am not saying those without insurance did not owe any finance as I guess this could still be possible.
The floods in Durban a while ago saw insurance companies low balling property owners for damages. I know our settlement we were offered was 20% of the total cost to repair and did not even cover the raw material supplies excluding the labor. I guess we will see some low ball offers for total rebuilds which should never be the case and were home owners lucky enough to have insurance will have to fight for their true value lost.
We saw not that long ago the US disaster fund FEMA offering those affected by the hurricane in North Carolina $750 after admitting they had no funds left. This is where charity begins at home and only when home is taken care of do you offer aid to other countries if any at all. The tax payer has to come first and why governments have made such a mess of things as they show they do not care.
The big question is if the total losses do come anywhere near the $150 billion mark then what were the people running the state even thinking considering fires in California are fairly regular. The problem is the fire hydrants had no water pressure so this was the perfect recipe for disaster if you throw in the high winds.
In South Africa things are bad, but not this bad as we have our own private security companies who have replaced the police and have now been forced to branch out into running ambulances and their own fire engines. This gives us peace of mind and why privatization does help when you know services are failing. This again is paid for by homeowners and maybe this is what Californians need to do. If you cannot rely on those in power then find an alternative.
I dare say if we had water problems at some point the private sector would step in and would offer an alternative supply. This may seem drastic, but what choices do you have if you keep voting in the wrong people. The State should never be in this position especially with how much money they have at their disposal. If they used the budget how it was intended to be used then these disasters should never happen and if they did then they would be prepared. This is kind of crazy to think that a first world country is paying for having a slack leadership that they voted in. I saw the LA Mayor was in Ghana and the Governor was trying to move away from the blame game, but they are the ones in charge.
This was bound to happen when you have people who are not up to task running and making the decisions. California is not alone as if we look across America and Europe there is something in common and this is weak leadership or non existent leadership. There seems to be no middle ground any more and this is very bad with the end result being more failures are guaranteed to happen.
