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Comment by Over2Chars

17 hours ago

I would assume that earthquake insurance in japan is a reasonable model for "world insurance".

It looks like it's a reinsurance program:

https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/financial_system/earthq...

So, I think the answer is "no".

14 comments

Over2Chars

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tzs  16 hours ago

Japan is probably not a good comparison for home insurance because houses in Japan typically only have a 20 to 30 year lifespan. After that they are usually torn down and a new house is built.

  • Over2Chars  16 hours ago

    Its a country built on seismically active volcanoes.

    If there's earthquake insurance in japan, it should be do-able.

    "In and around Japan, one-tenth of earthquakes in the world occur. " https://geoscienceletters.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/...

    • klodolph  9 hours ago

      Home values in Japan are somewhat anomalous. There are some good policies that contribute to this, but also other factors that make me reluctant to generalize from Japan. It’s a country with declining natural population, where houses are assets that rapidly decline in value to the point where they’re nearly worthless not that long after you buy them.

      Average home age in Japan is 30 years. I think, maybe once or twice, I’ve lived in a building less than 30 years old in the US. I’ve spent most of my life in buildings built pre-war. There aren’t so many pre-war buildings in Japan, but the US takes the blame for that one :-(

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  • UniverseHacker  15 hours ago

    Why would anyone tear down a 20 year old house? Where I live the houses are 80-100 years old and they’re better built and nicer to live in than most newer homes.

    • Macha  15 hours ago

      The traditional materials used in Japanese construction of everyday homes aren't really in the "built to last" category: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1DP5xpM3Y8 . In some cases, trying to make a house that was resistant to floods, fires and earthquakes at the same time would have been prohibitively expensive. I'm sure that led to forming habits that have continued into more modern eras of building styles where it's less required.

      They're also smaller, which makes construction costs cheaper which means people are more likely to make dramatic changes when fashion changes. And then there's more of a culture of prefab house building rather than extensions etc. Planning is also a lot more liberal which allows the rebuilt house to be more different and also reduces the cost of the process.

      I think even in Europe some of the older houses are houses of theseus though. The exterior shell is the same, but there's plenty of buildings in the local city centre that were tenements, then small business offices, then apartments, with significant remodeling that occurred. Or the house I used to live in was built in the 1880s, extended in the 1950s and significantly modernised in the 2000s. Each time there would have involved largely gutting the interior and rebuilding.

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