California Wildfires: A Metaphor for Insurance Dystopia

The Journal, CII

February 19, 2025

https://thejournal.cii.co.uk/features/2025/02/19/california-wildfires-metaphor-insurance-dystopia

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My blog for the Chartered Insurance Institute Journal.

“Virtually any city on Earth can burn now – probably not Dubai, but just about any place that has a lot of hydrocarbons. Berlin could burn, New York could burn, Pittsburgh can burn. LA is burning”: John Vaillant – author of ‘Fire Weather’ – tells Kiley Bense in Inside Climate News of January 16, 2025.

Southern California is a perfect blend of ‘unholy’ trinity – ignition, oxygen and fuel. Growing developer greed, setting aside Indigenous wisdom and invasive plant species that came with the colonisers – together with intensifying climate change ensure the deadly outcome.

“What climate change does is it takes naturally occurring phenomena and makes them more intense and more erratic, and also creates conditions for them to occur in places they didn’t normally occur. We all know Southern California is flammable. It’s part of the rhythm of this landscape”: explains Vaillant.

Given that these events are going to happen more and more often… should we be surprised? Lots to learn for markets wishing to scale insurance penetration in fragile landscapes.