Dorothy: Now which way do we go?
Scarecrow: Pardon me, this way is a very nice way.
Dorothy: Who said that?
[Toto barks at scarecrow]
Dorothy: Don’t be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don’t talk.
Scarecrow: [points other way] It’s pleasant down that way, too.
Dorothy: That’s funny. Wasn’t he pointing the other way?
Scarecrow: [points both ways] Of course, some people do go both ways.
The push to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is on and I’m feeling a little frisky. This particular post has been in the making since June (actually early March) much to my partner Nowdy’s occasional consternation with me for not helping others see it. However, the creativity it takes to author posts comes in streaks for me, especially when the subject matter is complicated. I can uncomplicate things a bit now with the help of the Scarecrow and a few others that were willing to stick their necks out as we journey to Oz.
Politics is about nuance and IMHO on March 4, 2008 Dr Edwin Duett of Mississippi State University entered the political fray when he proclaimed it was time we began talking to each other instead of past each other. The “we” of course is the paying public and some of the pols who represent us like Gene Taylor and the insurance industry. “Fair enough” I thought, as progress can only result through communication but I was later taken aback when I heard Dr Duett say to the consumers present, “You do not want to pay actuarially sound rates.” (as required by HR 3121 for multi peril coverage). Needless to say when the program concluded I made a beeline for Dr Duett to inquire exactly what constituted actuarilly sound rates for wind insurance. He directed me to what we pay the wind pool as a good approximation.
In my opinion Dr Duett couldn’t satisfactorily answer my follow up questions about the built in profitability for the reinsurance behind the wind pool rates which would be absent in HR 3121. He did give me his card and told me we would have to disagree (which puzzled me as I asked questions) and to email him if I wished to continue the discussion. I favor my own sources in academia however and never followed up with Dr Duett.
Commissioner Chaney had a talking point though which he later repeated to a joint Chamber/Rotary club luncheon in Bay St Louis in April 2008. I suspect he has been using the line a good bit. For the record Dr Duett prefers subsidized rates for coastal homeowners since we subsidize natural disasters anyway. From a public policy perspective that notion is a non starter and thus a preserver of the status quo.
So on one hand we have our insurance commissioner Mike Chaney telling us we can’t afford HR 3121, while others in the industry like our own Claimsguy tell us all we want is a handout and HR 3121 will be glorified welfare. Such is the way with people that are skilled in building straw men, the rhetoric sounds good until we peek under the scarecrow’s shirt. To assist I’ve enlisted the help of the big bad wolf who will huff and puff and blow the straw men in….
We start with Sam Friedman’s blog and W Anderson Baker III, a New Orleans based insurance agency president who wrote a piece on New Orleans for the National Underwriter.
Congress will apparently not add catastrophic wind coverage to the National Flood Insurance Program. I’m sure that makes sense. It was obvious no one was going to accept the premise that the pricing would have been actuarially sound, which set up the argument that one group of people would be subsidizing the lifestyle of others, and even though our entire tax system is based on this premise, that’s an argument for another day.
However, accepting the premise that people on the coast would have had their rates subsidized, I would ask: Who gets to live in New Orleans?
With due respect to both Mr Friedman and Mr Baker I thought the piece was hollow as the author accepts the failure of the insurance marketplace while faithfully awaiting a mythical market to return and fix the problem. Mr Baker must not have received the memo that private insurers are figuring out ways to leave America’s coastline and the taxpayers are already left holding the bag as Dr Duett correctly pointed out back in March. Perhaps that “bag” was not mentioned since it also adds to Mr Baker’s no doubt considerable income which would explain his belief that the Wizard will invent a true market based solution to coastal America’s insurance problems absent government money. In the meantime he won’t have to worry about commoners for neighbors.
Holman Jenkins Jr of the Wall Street Journal was similarily inspired to write on the subject of insurance and New Orleans yesterday:
Just add it to the list. Final liability for more and more of life’s risks is being assumed by the federal government, i.e., taxpayers. Investment banks and hedge funds now aspire to be “too big to fail.” Washington has completed its monopolization of the mortgage business and the student loan business. Car companies in a financial bind? Congress is ready to become their lender of last resort too.
New Orleans is just one city. Miami, Houston and Long Island are all a typhoon away from losses greater than Katrina’s $140 billion. One-third of Katrina’s damages were covered by private insurance. In the event of a Hayward Fault earthquake of 7 or higher, San Francisco and vicinity would be thwacked with losses upwards of $165 billion — of which only 10% are insured. Guess who will pick up the tab? And why not. Perversely, all such commitments seem a drop in the bucket compared to $85 trillion in unfunded Medicare liability.
The interesting thing to me is despite acknowledging the coastwide risks Jenkins seems to think only New Orleans needs “the medicine” of an insurance industry induced non developed coastline. Will he be writing the same thing of Manhattan as Hanna bears down on the eastern seaboard or if terrorists strike a major blow there again? Somehow I think not.
No doubt local voters and politicians would decry it as a crime if New Orleans were forced to become a smaller, higher city because of such “greedy” behavior by insurance companies. The rest of us would see it as a sign of hope for our economic future after all.
Indeed we are left to ponder the multitude of assumptions these writers and others made in reaching their conclusions. The same assumptions underpin the thinking of Holman Jenkins, Mr Baker, Dr Duett and Commissioner Chaney in saying actuarially sound premiums are too expensive to allow meaningful redevelopment of the Katrina coast. I do agree that in economics that there is ultimately no such thing as a free lunch. To me the trick is to figure out how much lunch costs and unlike Holman Jenkins Jr and the rest I don’t trust the pricing we currently get from a dysfunctional marketplace.
Pricing risk in the form of an insurance contract is a function of assumptions. It’d be fair to say the assumptions aren’t wild guesses and represent the best statistical methods available. In the property and casualty lines the major assumptions used for pricing relate to the weather based risks like the risk the wind damage particular to a geographic location for wind policies. In addition to that, the capital required to make good on a policies comes at a cost as well.
In the area of cost of capital it was Brian Martin who educated us by linking a University of Pennsylvania study which spoke on the issue of the cost of capital for large catastrophes:
The Wharton Risk Center excuses the prices as necessary to ensure high rates of return for investors, but in doing so acknowledges that coastal rates are 5 to 10 times higher than the estimated losses.
What this doesn’t say is that it is not economically rational to pay for insurance that costs 5 to 10 times more than the expected loss.
MANAGING LARGE‐SCALE RISKS IN A NEW ERA OF CATASTROPHES
From the preface, page vii:
16. Due to the unpredictability and sizable losses associated with catastrophes, insurers need to allocate more capital to cover the losses in the tail of the probability distribution. The need to secure an adequate rate of return on capital is not sufficiently understood. In particular, the prices charged for catastrophe insurance must be high enough, not only to cover the expected claims and other expenses, but also to cover the costs of allocating capital to underwrite this risk. For truly extreme risks, the resulting premium can be as much as 5 to 10 times higher than the expected loss, so as to provide investors with a fair return on equity and also maintain the insurer’s credit rating.
19. Reinsurers consider both the expected loss and the variance of losses in their portfolio when pricing different layers of coverage. An analysis of different layers of reinsurance for a constructed portfolio of all the homeowners policies in Florida reveals that the average annual loss decreases with higher layers (because they are less likely to occur), but the variance of the losses increases. This leads to a higher price per dollar of coverage for the higher layers, which are normally associated with truly catastrophic losses.
So is it possible to have cheaper rates than the private marketplace and still have actuarilly sound rates? Absolutely, if good assumpions are used to calculate risk coupled with the low cost of capital provided by Uncle Sam’s full faith and credit.
And while we are talking about assumptions used in pricing how do we know the ones used by insurance companies in setting rates are not rigged to support artificially high rates? The Wall Street Journal finally tackled the subject (subscription required) long covered here on Slabbed with big assists from Sam Friedman. You can find our posts on this subject here, here, here, and here among other places:
Scientists say the jury is still out on whether rising sea temperatures will cause more hurricanes to hit U.S. coastlines. Yet some insurance companies are boosting premiums based on assumptions that they will. Others are withdrawing from coastal communities altogether……….
Helping to drive these developments is a little-known tool of the insurance world: Computerized catastrophe modeling. Crafted by several independent firms and used by most insurers, so-called cat models rely on complex data to estimate probable losses from hurricanes.
But regulators and other critics contend that the latest cat models — which include assumptions about various climate changes — are triggering higher insurance rates.
Starting in the early 1990s, cat models began to replace the industry’s older tools. Previously, insurers based their rates and underwriting policies largely on historical records of past claims. The turning point in methodology came after 1992, when Hurricane Andrew wrought damages in excess of $15.5 billion and left about a dozen insurers insolvent.
The original purpose of cat models was to help stabilize the insurance market and ensure affordable coverage in risky areas. To do this, the first versions used historical weather data to project long-term future losses.
In the wake of the punishing 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, many cat models saw drastic revisions. Rather than take a traditional longterm view, some attempted to estimate what might happen in the next several years. Modelers also factored in dramatically higher rebuilding costs when a large area is hit. The result: big premium hikes and higher deductibles.
Underlying the newer cat models are scientific theories that rising sea temperatures will result in more intense, and possibly more frequent, hurricanes. The hypotheses suggest that catastrophic hurricanes like 2005’s Rita, Wilma and Katrina weren’t an aberration, but rather the shape of things to come.
Large reinsurance companies, such as Swiss Re and Munich Re, were early converts to theories of global warming and cite warming of the earth’s oceans when predicting massive damages from future storms.
“Losses from hurricanes and tropical storms have risen along with sea temperatures,” says Eberhard Faust, a climate scientist at Munich Re. “This is [the assumption] from where all the modelers start.”
That sea-surface temperatures are rising is no longer much in dispute. There is also near-consensus that rising temperatures are linked to greater hurricane activity. However, scientists remain divided over how that may affect the number and intensity of hurricanes making landfall in the coastal U.S. A few climate experts believe global warming might actually cause fewer hurricanes to come ashore on the East Coast………………
Some scientists, like Chuck Watson, contend that cat models may fail to take into account such scientific uncertainty. A geophysicist, he advises the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology — a state panel that reviews insurer models. Cat models, he says, use assumptions about variables like air pressure and wind velocity that can’t be known precisely. As a result, the models can be overreaching in their conclusions and “are not being properly applied” by some insurers, he says.
Perhaps the most prominent critic to surface is Karen Clark, an economist who founded one of the first cat-modeling firms two decades ago. Today, she warns about the programs’ misapplication.
After Katrina, she attended insurance-company meetings to discuss “what went wrong” and concluded that there were more problems with how insurers were using the models than with the models themselves.
Companies that rely too heavily on cat-model data “are subjecting their businesses and their customers to the volatility of computer models,” says Ms. Clark, who now runs a Boston cat-model consulting business. “The models are being used as if they produce definitive answers rather than uncertain estimates.” Ms. Clark says she advises clients to use them in conjunction with other factors, such as broad historical data.
The bottom line for me is those that buy into the notion that our wind pool pricing is the actuarilly sound rate are the ones taking a huge leap of faith. The results of that leap have been paid for off the backs of the working man and at the expense of those that can least afford it.
It seems to me this is where the rubber meets the road. The public policy decision to rebuild has been made. Mr Baker well pointed out the reasons behind that public policy decision in the case of New Orleans in his piece on Sam Friedman’s blog. And the reasons for rebuilding here would also be true in the case of places like Tampa, Charleston, Miami or New York.
Those who stake positions on the right will be the first to tell you government has limitations. Private industry, even those with anti trust exemption like insurance have limitations too.
sop
Way to shorten my bitchtosopabout list! Great job!
Just pay those rate hikes and never mind all that stuff behind the curtain. huh if they only had a brain
Great post.
The big insurance companies already acknowledge that the government can cover cat risk better than the private reinsurance industry. That is the assumption behind all their proposals that call for a federal reinsurance backstop to replace the highest layers of private reinsurance.
We took their argument that the government can handle catastrophic timing risk and capital requirements more efficiently and extended it another step to offer primary coverage of combined wind and flood risk to meet the need in hurricane risk areas.
We would require premiums to be risk based and the program to be actuarially sound, but the federal rates would be better than the wind pools because the federal government would not have to buy overpriced reinsurance. This is not complicated economics, but most insurance-oriented economists are blinded by a bias against government solutions.
Thank you all.
Jane check out Sam Friedman’s blog on this topic too. When the lady that pioneered the science of weather modeling says there is a problem in how they are used, policymakers need to pay close attention.
sop
Quote: “The big insurance companies already acknowledge that the government can cover cat risk better than the private reinsurance industry.”
Well, duh. Of course the government can. It has (literally) all the money in the world. It doesn’t have to worry about being responsible or making payroll or anything else. it just prints money and hands it out.
CATs are taking a hit with these actual hurricanes.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayjKII.YoVMI&refer=home
What the hell does “Actuary” mean anyway, imaginary theoretical actuality? OK, silly question. Right?
While I’m neither fiscally nor psychologically qualified to handle most o’da slabbin’heah, even I can toll’ya this dog won’t hunt.
Don’beeleeve me jus’ax Warren Buffet in 2001:
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/people/hal/NYTimes/2001-10-25.html
or our dauntless supa’slabba last month:
http://slabbed.wordpress.com/2008/07/04/warren-buffett-is-the-cats-meow-in-florida/
(or this really smart guy:)
http://seekingalpha.com/article/88071-county-by-county-cat-bonds-pinpointing-risk
jus’sayin, you got it, Mon.
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
claimsguy, you need to learn a little about economics. The federal government can spread risk geographically among policyholders, each paying a premium based on his risk, and account for the capital needed for a major catastrophe. If most of the premiums that wind pools and FAIR plans are charging coastal propertyowners and then passing on to pay for reinsurance were instead going into a federal wind/flood plan, we would have a stable pool that could cover major catastrophic losses without the volatility, cherry-picking, and profiteering that characterizes the private market.
The wind option would not be difficult to set up to pay for itself. All the risk and loss data and models we need are out there. No dilemmas figuring out what to do about levees or how to map the flood plain or the other problems that plague the flood program.
The flood program does have problems that need to be fixed. The wind/flood option would give us an opportunity to transition to a more economically sound program.
Quote: “The federal government can spread risk geographically among policyholders”
In other words, we can have low-risk people subsidize high-risk people.
Kind of like good drivers subsidizing drunk drivers. Seems fair.
Brian, you and I will never agree on this, because I reject your stated assumption that the rate-making process will be free from political influence. I think your position is incredibly naive, and I think if you ever were to engage in a moment of unguarded candor, you would, being knowlegeable in the ways of The Hill, have to agree that I am right.
But you won’t and you can’t.
This is a pork-barrel welfare program, pure and simple.
So we now have the fourth named storm of the season bearing down on the Gulf Coast.
But remember, folks: homeowner’s coverage there ought to be cheap. Yessiree: no risk there. And whatever we do, we shouldn’t let people who price that coverage for a living be involved in the process. They’ll just muck it up. Better to have bureaucrats do it: THEY don’t make any mistakes (with our money), do they?
Cheap homeowner’s insurance is an entitlement. Like cheap gas.
Nope we just would like a bit of vaseline to go with the insurance Mr CG, that’s all.
sop
Yet ANOTHER entitlement? You guys never quit.
The only person I see asking for entitlements is insurance companies. They ask for cheaper reinsurance and then claim the rates they get paid must be raised. Florida is a prime example of this. The state made available cheaper re-insurance and the industry put on a very pretty dog and pony show about how rates needed to be raised not lowered. Any re-insurance program from the fed’s would never make it past the private sector. I think if the fed’s provide subsidies for the insurance industry it must come with regulation just like everyone else gets.
“Brian, you and I will never agree on this, because I reject your stated assumption that the rate-making process will be free from political influence.”—
Claimsguy you seem to think the current model for insurance is working well? Nothing more than a bunch of loud mouth lying free loaders wanting to get their hands on the tax payers money?
Your right of course but you have the wrong people trying to get their hands on the fed’s money—Its the insurance companies who are trying to get the fed’s to assume the risk currently held by insurance companies.
If the fed’s assume the unknown top end of the risk what do we need private insurance companies for??? Private insurance companies are NOT going to ask for fair pricing for their re-insurance purchases from the fed’s. Nope SEE FLORIDA for a real life example of how the industry will take the governments money and then ask consumers to pay 50 percent more… Stick it to the tax payer and the consumer. Nice trick if you can pull it off claims guy.
The carriers didn’t ask for the wax paper and chewing gum system that FL has. That was FL’s boneheaded idea. I am sure the carriers would be happier if the state bagged that silly system entirely.
Adding a market intervention on top of a market intervention on top of a market intervention is NOT the way to a good result.
Kinda like subprime huh Mr CG. The markets work fine by themselves right? (Remember to click your heels together when you say that)
sop
cg, you cannot even read. This is what I wrote:
“The federal government can spread risk geographically among policyholders, each paying a premium based on his risk,…”
You dropped off the part about everyone paying according to his/her own risk, than went off on a clownish rant about low risk people subsidizing high risk people.
If you are going to respond to me, I insist that you at least try to base your response on what I have written.
Subprime? Rather a leap, isn’t it?
If you are going to go into some sort of fact-free word association trance, include Enron, too.
As for you Martin, I ignored the “to each according to his need” part of your post because we both know you don’t mean it. If this program wasn’t going to be a free lunch your constituents wouldn’t want it.
Somebody please tell Mr CG Brian is not a US Congressman.
Hey, claimsguy! Brian is not a US Congressman.
I understand that. He’s a Congressman’s briefcase carrier. So what? I don’t recall saying that he was.
Actually Brian is the guy who runs the power point presentations Mr CG – for the congressman whose multi peril bill won’t die despite the multitude of previous annoucements of it’s demise.
We are very lucky to have a man of Brian’s caliber working on behalf of the Mississippi 4th district in DC. The fact you personally attack him so tells the world how much you fear him.
sop
All these guys must be in a cult based on faith in the inherent goodness of the insurance industry. Our point should not be even debatable to anyone who knows anything about insurance or economics.
Why does a health insurance plan for 5 people cost more per person than a plan for 500 people? Because there is much more uncertainty and variability. One person with cancer can bankrupt the 5-person plan but at 500 or 5000 enrolles the proportion of people with high health costs is much easier to predict so the plan can charge premiums closer to the expected claims without needing a big cushion for uncertainty and variability.
The hurricane economics is the same. A hurricane plan for 70 miles of coastline (the MS wind pool) has to charge higher premiums than a plan covering 5000 miles of coastline. The MS plan has to be prepared to pay almost every policy holder at the same time if a major hurricane hits its 70-mile coastline even though that is a rare event. The 5000 mile plan has much more predictable losses. It doesn’t know where a big one will hit just as the health insurer does not know who will get cancer, but it knows about how much of the pool will be affected so it has much less uncertainty and variability and can set premiums closer to the expected claims.
Don’t they teach this stuff in economics or business schools?
Then when you have high uncertainty and variability you also have high capital costs to account for the money to pay on a high severity event. To get companies and investors to take that exposure you have to offer them very high rates of return.
What these insurance commissioners and industry hacks call actuarial rates would lock in high earnings for insurance and reinsurance companies and their investors. They want to keep everyone in state pools with high variability because it justifies their price gouging and profiteering after a disaster.
The government could beat their price easily because it would use the premium receipts to build up reserves and to pay claims rather than sending most of the premiums to Bermuda reinsurers every year.
Good points, as always, Brian.
With more and more insurance companies owning reinsurance, as well, what safeguards are in place to prevent windpool board members from sending business to the company’s reinsurance arm?
Spot on Brian. I once told a journalist it was better they didn’t come from a business background before coveirng these insurance issues. Economics 101 is the only prerequisite anyone needs to understand this.
Besides South Carolina Insurance Commish Scott Richardson being wet, was anyone else struck by Claimsguy comment left on Spetember 9, 2008?