Wow, that's like how fire protection used to be a century ago when fire companies competed for business in big cities, and sometimes fought each other instead of fires.
Like so much else in America, we are seeing the death of the commons and a move to a
1) self-service economy,
2) a subscription-based economy
3) an everyone for himself or herself economy
That said, if I'm an insurance company looking to mitigate risks, do I spend $50K on firefighters to defend a modest home that is hard to defend because it's a on a small lot has only a small amount of defensible space, or do I spend that $50K to send a crew to a sprawling, multi-million dollar estate where if one in twenty times it's effective, I come out ahead? Insurance companies live and die by getting the cost/risk calculation correct.
I don't blame the insurance companies for making this decision. The root of the problem is that, in general, people do now want to get real about the costs, responsibilities and risks of living in fire country or hurricane country or flood plains.
