Notes From the Oil Production Downslope: Hit Me Baby, One More Time
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 10:55AM I teach a class at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, VT. This allows me to meet interesting people from all over the country and hear their stories. The latest installment in the ongoing decline in oil production comes from a student whose day job is doing bodywork on luxury vehicles in the New York borough of Queens.
On the mortgage crisis front, banks are now receiving “jingle mail.” This is when a homeowner realizes that his or her mortgage is a larger number than the declining value of the home covered by the mortgage. Why keep paying a $500,000 mortgage on a $450,000 (and falling) house? The homeowner locks the door,mails the keys to the bank, and walks away. In some cases, the frustrated homeowner vandalizes the house before departure.
On the oil crisis front, gas-guzzlers are taking hits. Literally. My student reports that he is seeing SUVs vandalized by their owners. Unable to keep forking over $100 at the gas station and unable to sell their dinosaurs for the balance on their car loans, people are going for the insurance money.
The nighttime application of a sledgehammer to the bodywork, windows, and interior generally does the job, although some augment this with spray paint. This led to an embarrassing bust in one case, where the owner neglected to remove his keys from the ignition, covering them with a telltale coat of paint.
In other cases, owners of these non-salable money pits have gotten into fender benders and then augmented the legitimate damage with blunt instruments. Some people ask the body shop if they can declare the vehicle “totaled.” The body shop people have to repeatedly explain that this question is answered by the insurance company claims adjuster.
This is the first scattering of gravel that presages the landslide. Right now the phenomenon is limited to people who bought far too much car for their gas budget. The line of unaffordability will sweep down from the wheeled Zeppelins to less gargantuan vehicles and more prosperous owners. Next will come the abandonment of those too-far-to-commute outer suburban houses. The inexorable trend will be towards lower fuel use, which means lower vehicle mass per passenger and less mobility in general. The battered SUVs of Queens are harbingers of the new reality.
Reader Comments (1)
MH-
I am an appraiser in Maine. One of my clients is a title insurance company. Buyers claim flawed title policies and hit up the title insurer for the loss, and it is my job to estimate the damage caused by the flaw. It may be a problem with access, a surveyor discovers something, etc.
In the past, I've done a job here and there, a few a year. But over the past year, I've handled as many claims as in the last decade, and have three on my plate right now. To boot, the insured are claiming total losses, often spuriously. And it always seems that the insured are coincidentally trying to sell their property, and have had a tough time doing it. Like everybody else around here.
It also seems like much of the mom & pop commercial real estate around here is catching fire and burning to the foundation. Always at night.
I wonder if you can get a rider in an umbrella policy to cover the loss should you be discovered making a fraudulent insurance claim...
-ML