Building in Active Lava Zone

[JerryCarr]

The art and science of predicting where eruptions will occur and where flows will go are not well enough developed to truly satisfy actuaries and insurance underwriters, or so I'm told. IMHO, the current zone system (if you want to call it a system) is so broad that is seems designed more to give the insurance companies cover for price gouging than to accurately assess risk. The likelihood of real damage in some of the high risk zones is far less than would seem to merit the cost. Getting zoning regulations that accurately assess risk would be just as tricky. Some areas in the maximum risk zones have been covered twice in less than 20 years while others haven't seen lava in a century or more. Talk about all over the map! (Pun intended.)

Slightly off topic, but didn't the house recently lost to lava appear to have been of a type that is relatively simple to move? Anyone know why it wasn't moved?