Climate Change Just Kicked Me in the Nuts, Again
Figuratively speaking…
No doubt about it, climate change is coming for us all. For me personally, the first shoe dropped when I was forced in 2020 to evacuate my home for a couple of weeks due to a huge forest fire. Fortunately, in the end, my property was spared. (I wrote about this in My House Will Burn Down.)
Now, the other shoe has dropped. When I went to my mailbox this morning, my eye was drawn to a business envelope with pink paper visible through the celluloid window. Pink slips are always bad news, right? Right, at least in this case. The letter said that my homeowner’s insurance will not be renewed this year due to fire risk. Apparently, Farmers is pulling out of the area, as State Farm did a year ago.
The letter carefully explained that properties are rated on a 30 point scale for fire risk. My home’s Wildfire Risk Score, a.k.a. Fireline® score, as assessed by Farmers’ vendor Verisk™, is 3 out of 5 (for fuel) x 2 out of 5 (for property slope) + 0 out of 5 (for access) = 6 out of a possible 30. I wonder what the cut-off is for insuring, as 6 seems pretty low on a scale of 0–30.
I probably will not find an independent insurer and will be forced into the California FAIR plan. FAIR is a joint venture of property insurers in the state to provide an insurer of last resort, as required by state insurance regulations. It provides shitty insurance for a high price, similar to the California Automobile Assigned Risk Plan (CAARP) for high-risk drivers.
Since I am, fortunately, a multi-millionaire (see I am a Multi-Millionaire but I am Afraid of Retirement), this issue is merely an inconvenience for me. I try not to fret about any problem I can resolve with money. But it is another wake-up call about the reality of climate change. Things are getting real around here!
If the trend continues, in 2028 another shoe will drop for me. It will probably make me move to another area. The next shoe drops in 2032, and that one will probably be fatal.
But wait, climate change is accelerating! So the next shoe is probably 2026 or 2027, and I am dead before 2030. Ah well, easy come, easy go. Thanks for all the fish (as the dolphins said when they left the earth at the end of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).
