![farmers[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/farmers1.jpg?quality=83)
From the Insurance Journal:
Insurer mysteriously withdraws high-profile lawsuit for climate damages in Chicago flooding case
Farmers Insurance Co. has withdrawn its lawsuit against Chicago for climate-related flooding, marking an abrupt end to a novel legal claim that had tantalized observers with its prospects for pushing cities to act against climate change.
The company filed for dismissal Tuesday after its case against dozens of municipalities in the Chicago area gained national media attention and no short amount of criticism from local officials, who warned that taxpayers would shoulder the cost of the class-action suit.
A spokesman for Farmers said in a statement that the company reversed course after the lawsuit successfully caught the attention of municipalities, which the company had accused of mismanaging their stormwater systems. The lawsuit claimed that 600 homes were damaged during a downpour in April 2013 after local officials allegedly failed to drain underground storm tunnels and deploy protective barriers. It also said the officials failed to account for heavier rainfall from global warming.
Source: http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060000761
Hmmm, they filed a lawsuit to elevate awareness? I’m not buying it.
Chances are some corporate weasel halfwit came to his/her senses and realized three things:
1) They can’t absolutely link severe weather events leading to flooding and climate change, so their lawsuit was unwinnable. See the data below.
Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950.
Percent of US streamguages above “bankfull streamflow” defined as the highest daily mean streamflow value expected to occur, on average, once in every 2.3 years. Source: USGS
Flood losses as a percentage of US GDP have dropped by about 75% since 1940.
Annual flood losses have decreased from about 0.2% of US GDP to <0.05% since 1940. Flood loss data from NOAA Hydrologic Information Center.
h/t to Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. for those graphs.
2) The bad press they were getting probably was projected to cost more than they could recover.
3) The reason insurance is purchased at all is to CYA in unforseen circumstances, including “acts of God”. For Farmers Insurance Group to put the onus of being prepared for all such contingencies is counter-intuitive for the need to purchase insurance at all.
The lesson from Farmers was “Why buy insurance from us at all? If you do and you don’t meet our retroactively applied arbitrary and unscientific risk standards, we’ll just sue you to get the money back”.
Idiots.
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Dweebs…
Had no idea about this – glad we don’t use them. Idiots indeed.
Ahhh I see now, CAGW is all about challenging the Almighty. What was one known as an “Act of God” is now an “Act of Mankind” got it, it is the ultimate atheists creed.
getting unbelievable
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average
weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the
mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging
from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for
averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological
Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables
such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Climate in a wider sense is
the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.
Well, IPCC AR5 glossary says climate is just the cumulative effects of weather.
They found out that the pockets they wanted to pick were well connected politically , and paybacks are hell?
Nah, not in Chicago….
Every insurance policy is like another annuity for the insurance company – until they have to pay off. If they can get a court decision that basically says they *never* have to pay off, it’s pure gravy for them – until the payees discover the truth and see that buying ‘insurance’ is pointless.
Great move by the Farmers Insurance. It was about time
The reality is that climate obsession has given cover to governments worldwide to neglect to do the basic infrastructure spending that used to be a hallmark of good governance. Between nihilistic greens opposing every advance of civilization and climate kooks declaring the end of the world, infrastructure to protect from flood and storm is not keeping up in many places.
Yet another cost of the climate madness being inflicted upon us.
From NBC News version:
First, who knew folksy Farmers Insurance, with their image of genuinely caring for their customers since days gone by when they offered insurance to farmers, actually belonged to a money-grubbing multinational conglomerate?
Second, if a municipality should dare to compose a climate action plan that would in any way confess they might be unprepared for the maximum possible disastrous catastrophes imagined by the IPCC, EPA, WWTF, GreenWar, or the Sierra Leone Club, they are leaving themselves open to lawsuits for failing to sufficiently respond to a public safety issue.
Thus the message to all politicians is, don’t put anything in writing that can bite you later, don’t do any climate action plan.
That’ll work.
Illinois got more rain when it was cooler!
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/atmos/statecli/climate-change/iltren-temp.png
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/atmos/statecli/climate-change/iltren-prcp.png
“Climate Change in Illinois – Temperature and Precipitation”
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/atmos/statecli/climate-change/iltrends.htm
Sweet Old Bob says: “They found out that the pockets they wanted to pick were well connected politically, and paybacks are hell? Nah, not in Chicago….”
It may have been that horse’s head they found in their bed that changed their mind.
“””””….. Nicholas Schroeder says:
June 7, 2014 at 1:15 pm
………………………………………
Well, IPCC AR5 glossary says climate is just the cumulative effects of weather…….””””‘
Finally they got something correct.
A more mathematical statement of what they said is:
Climate is the integral of weather.
On average, hurricanes don’t do anything. It’s only when you cherry pick some data during a hurricane, while it is passing over (literally) somebody’s beach cottage, that you notice anything untoward happening. Averaged over 30 years, there is no climate effect of any hurricane I’ve ever heard of.
Come to think of it, dropping a nuke on Nagasaki , didn’t do much on average. You just shouldn’t do that sort of thing too often.
Only a miniscule number of parameters are ever included in any discussion of climate; yet every single energy transaction that ever takes place anywhere on this planet, has an effect.
Only Mother Gaia, keeps tabs on every single transaction without exception; and so she sets the climate at exactly what it is supposed to be.
No matter what we do, the climate will always be correct.
In the UK, insurers will only provide flood insurance to areas not at risk of flooding. So, if it’s available, a householder would be a fool to buy it, on the basis that there’s very little risk.
The tiny little problem with going to court is they want to see the evidence. That is where climate crock becomes unstuck. They can’t introduce “what if” climate models. Then you have to show it’s caused by man’s greenhouse gases. The defense will then look back into time, climate crock becomes unstuck yet again.
Hummm, I seem to reember reading about how good Chicago’s fiscal condition was a while ago. That may have something to do with it…… Chicago should probably sue them. They really need the money since they have run themselves into the ground.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/09/fiscal-crisis-in-chicago-pensions-31.html
Farmers ads claim they are making you smarter about Insurance and then ask “what if you didn’t know …….. [such and such]” and then list several things they say could hurt you and concludes with a catchy tune “We are Farmers, Bum bum bum.” Maybe, Farmers has finally gotten smarter about global warming.
The gold in them thar’ climate hills is gettin’ a mite scarce.
Occasionally they do stupid things, despite being folksy – didn’t they get much bad PR a few years ago for denying a claim by a woman whose estranged husband or such deliberately smashed into her on the freeway?
Would you use an insurance company that doesn’t know how to write proper English? “Get’s”……
It’s simple.
As long as there’s a long-term climate threat they can point to, the insurance companies can demand rate increases from their state regulating authorities.
…and due to the nature of the threat, they’ll probably never have to pay out in the lifetime of the people asking for higher rates.
Basically, extra profits for effectively zero risk.
Hey, I’m perfectly fine with suing municipalities that fail to build or maintain infrastructure like flood control. Katrina demonstrated that the levees were woefully neglected, Sandy demonstrated that much of NYCs flood control had been allowed to decay and new construction failed to take into account the possibility of something that has happened in the past.
Here in Calgary the City has been told over and over by hired consultants that they need to dredge the rivers and berm their banks, and they repeatedly ignored or laughed at those suggestions. June 2013 we had a flood that was the worst since the 1930s, and almost all of the damage was caused by a city that failed to do their most basic job. In the full year since, they have still not removed any of the rock and sand that the flood washed in, and we are actually in more danger of flooding this year than we were last year.
But attributing floods and “future climate” to “climate change” is never, EVER going to win. We WUWT regulars are more than aware that IF this stuff ends up in court it will come out, publicly, exactly what the charts above show: nothing unusual is happening. The “climate change” industry will not allow that.
I wonder if Farmers were preparing their case and researching their facts, and suddenly came to the realization that “manmade climate change” is neither supported by evidence, nor provable, nor even possible.
It appears to be the fault of the press that this was reported as a climate-change story at all. The suit appears to really be about cities failing to maintain and operate their flood-control hardware properly. I don’t see anything either unrealistic or immoral about a suit over that.
Except — flood insurance in the US is a function of the federal government. Farmers doesn’t sell it except as agents for the federal agency. So how could a flood affect Farmers’ bottom line at all?
The insurance industry has been pushing climate catastrophe / CAGW since the 1970s. It looked good while the correlation lasted, then it began to fall apart. The story now stinks. 17+ years of no global warming – the tipping point is soon – when the warming = the standstill. Cooling will be a catastrophic disaster for Warmists.
The jig is almost over.
It is obvious that it is time to collectivise the insurance industry. Think of all the Americans and illegal aliens who are uninsured for global warming. Think of the children!
We need obama-climate-care insurance. Just give the gov’t $$$ and they will keep the oceans from rising and the sky from falling.