Homes in parts of the U.S. are "essentially uninsurable" due to rising climate change risks

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News

September 20, 2023 / 12:01 AM


Millions of American homeowners like Mary Morse find themselves stuck in a financial bind, facing mounting risks from wildfires and floods linked to climate change while their home insurance rates rocket upwards. Increasingly, the crowning blow comes when insurers withdraw coverage, leaving individuals and even entire communities vulnerable.

"I got a letter from my insurance company that said, 'We're not going to serve your area anymore'," Morse, 75, told CBS News about her Pine Cove, California, home. "I even sent [the insurance agent] a picture of my fire hydrant. It didn't help."

The growing risk of wildfire means that some parts of California are becoming "essentially 'uninsurable'," according to a new analysis from the First Street Foundation, a non-profit that studies climate risks, shared first with CBS News. The research has alarming implications for homeowners across the U.S., with even residents of inland states such as Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia facing sharply higher insurance costs because of increased damage from extreme weather that experts attribute in part to climate change.

About 35.6 million properties — one-quarter of all U.S. real estate — face increasing insurance prices and reduced coverage due to high climate risks, the analysis found. The rise in insurance costs isn't merely a hit to homeowners' budgets, however — the higher costs also devalue their properties, First Street said.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/insurance-policy-california-florida-uninsurable-climate-change-first-street/

---

Link to report summary - https://firststreet.org/research-lab/published-research/article-highlights-from-the-insurance-issue/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. ''the higher costs also devalue their properties"

Time for TAX ASSESSMENT APPEAL

[hatrack]

2. But please, do go on, GQP, and tell us more about Hunter Biden and "groomers"

[jimfields33]

8. I'd bet Governor newsome is on this. No need for republicans.

[OldBaldy1701E]

3. And, how many of these insurance companies are owned by rethugs

Who are part of the 'climate denial' crowd? They can do this and yet they refuse to acknowledge the existence of the issue they are using to jack up their prices? Typical...

[ancianita]

4. It's how the climate future will look, economically. No national insurers insure Florida homes,

either.

Florida homeowners have to get insured through a state run exchange system.

[LaMouffette]

6. I wonder if residents in these states will migrate to states where they can get home insurance or

stay put and live without home insurance and just rebuild in case of disaster, if they can. But what if they have mortgages? Banks require borrowers to have home insurance. They will need to sell their house, but who will buy their house if it's uninsurable? What a mess.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. What's often left out of these articles is that typical home insurance

is basically "fire insurance" (and maybe covers some other ancillary damage like that to a roof from branches, etc). It doesn't cover "floods". That is what the federal government's (expensive) flood insurance (managed through 3rd party insurers) would do - assuming someone gets that as an addition to their current policy.

Those who live along or near coastal areas that experience storm surges or who live near creeks or rivers, are SOL otherwise. The disaster aid from the federal government can sometimes cover some of it but the owner who applies needs to have all their ducks in a row and even then, it could still take years.

[LaMouffette]

17. I imagine we will see an increasing number of climate change refugees in the US. It's already

happening on a larger scale than I realized:

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/who-are-americas-climate-migrants-and-where-will-they-go

Climate migrants—people displaced by the far-reaching effects of climate change—already exist in the United States. They include homeowners wading through the process for buyouts of flood-prone homes, families evacuating during climate-exacerbated disasters, and the families moving en masse from places experiencing environmental and economic changes.

Just last year, 16.1 million people globally were displaced because of weather-related disasters. More than 1.2 million of those displaced were Americans. Journalists and policymakers are paying greater attention to this issue.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. I think we saw that first hand after Hurricane Katrina

when a significant portion of those who lived in and around New Orleans and had evacuated to TX, decided to stay in TX.

New Orleans initially lost over 1/2 of its population and at present, even with some gains again, are still only back to less than 80% of their pre-Katrina population.

[Miguelito Loveless]

11. This is a recipe

for a massive collapse in real estate prices.

[LaMouffette]

14. You're right. With the banks and the uber-wealthy swooping in to buy up all those homes on the cheap

until Florida and California coastal areas are only populated by people with the money to rebuild on their own. Or the power to demand that the federal government give them money to rebuild.

There will be no one left behind to perform the essential work required in a community. I guess the wealthy business owners will bus workers in or provide employee housing, like they do in ski towns like Vail, Colorado.

[Ligyron]

7. I was going to chime in with the ridiculous situation in Florida.

But I see there's really no need.

Wonder what Merde el lardo costs to insure? What am I saying, Dumpo is so rich he can just rebuild with the funds out of his allowance money.

[dembotoz]

9. not a fan of insurance companies but they know risk

florida pols and residents can deny til they are blue in the face but the risk meter has been creeping up for a long time.

Insurance companies are there to make money more than provide a service.
if the risk is to great you go somewhere else

insurance companies are the canary in the climate coal mine.

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

12. Future Insurance Price Map

Looking at places to retire. I would love to see projections of how climate change is expected impact real estate prices, insurance prices, frequency of climate disasters, and mean temperature & rainfall, etc.

If/when the coast flood or property is uninsurable against the frequent storms, where will it be better to live?

Someone has to have done the projections.

[Martin68]

22. Some communities or sites have done the studies required, others haven't. You can google future

flood risk maps for some places. I live in Albemarle County, Virginia, and this is a link to their online GIS maps.

https://gisweb.albemarle.org/gpv_51/Viewer.aspx#

You can turn on overlays for 100-year flood plains, critical slopes, aerial maps, and a lot of other types of information. Many county government have similar online GIS maps available. But smaller streams are usually not included in the overlays, even when they can pose a flooding threat.

[milestogo]

13. But climate change is a hoax!

[Kennah]

15. Small, underground, hobbit homes in places high enough in elevation not to flood

[TeamProg]

16. Here in Calif., the most damaging and expensive fires were either human or corporate

caused. Faulty equipment or just stupidity by campers, drivers and the sickness of arsonists.

Yes, lightning lit up many parts of the Sierra and Big Sur coast range but there is less population and fewer homes to burn.

[relayerbob]

18. This is just the start

Soon, literally billions of people are going to start migrating to safer, better climates.

[Prairie_Seagull]

20. Home owners insurance covers more than just fires.

If insurance companies decide to drop wildfire coverage in ever increasing areas of the country. I would think they would still cover the rest (liability, theft...) at a lower rate....maybe. Some of this will no doubt be regulated by state insurance bureaus. Get on them now! If you have fear of increased rates or being dropped entirely. I would say inform yourself first then call your insurance company and give your input.

We just had 3 wildfires in our area of Spokane and have been fighting with increased wildfire threat for a few years. It won't surprise me if my insurance rate goes up, We live on a prairie so mostly low growing stuff but I have a lot of trees. Won't surprise me either if demands are made to remove some trees. I have not contacted my insurance company yet about any of this but. I would be willing to bet it is on the cough/sneeze inducing smoky horizon.

IMO

[Hekate]

24. Dry prairies burn, &so does chaparral, with embers that spread on the wind. For your home protection

For the safety of your home, check into what California calls defensive landscaping. There are things you don’t want too close to your house, and other things that are okay. Trees should be offset, and type of tree is important — eucalyptus goes up like a torch, and dried out palm tree fronds (probably not a feature of Spokane landscaping, but common here) blow away flaming.

You can have really attractive landscaping, including trees, is what I’m saying.

[Prairie_Seagull]

25. There is no question to me but that this is the correct thing to do.

Further, that I have a responsibility to my neighbors homes. I have no control over what others do, just us. In my view however this will need to have governmental along with insurance financial participation. It costs significantly to have trees removed. Not everyone will be able to foot this bill and through no fault of their own they could wind up out of compliance.

I don't have the answers, but I know this needs to be addressed. We can wait for the last minute or get ahead of the curve and in doing so help to make clearer the biggest global topic arguably ever.

[Hekate]

26. I have no idea what kind of tree situation you & your neighbors have, but it is a community

…education issue. Because California is dry and burns, it’s been on our minds a long time.

Sorry I misnamed Defensible Space. A place to start:

No combustible bark or mulch. Remove all dead and dying plants, weeds, and debris (leaves, needles, etc.) from your roof, gutter, deck, porch, stairways, and under any areas of your home. Remove all branches within 10 feet of any chimney or stovepipe outlet.

Defensible Space - Cal Fire - CA.gov

https://www.fire.ca.gov/dspace#:~:text=No%20combustible%20bark%20or%20mulch,any%20chimney%20or%20stovepipe%20outlet.

[Martin68]

21. This has been a very long time coming, but it is essential to reversing our currently unsustainable

land use permitting policies. Nothing should be built next to rivers or streams within 100-year floodplains (or make it 500?). Nothing should be built on steep slopes - roads in particular. Nothing should be built within reach of predicted sea-level rise along the coast or within range of predicted tidal surges. I'm not as familiar with fire danger, but increasing occurrence of wildfires should be taken into account when permitting future building in fire-prone areas. Some smart communities in the Carolinas are buying up property along streams in urban areas that are increasingly prone to flooding and reserving them for gardening or park use. That way there's a flood plain made available to dissipate the energy of floodwaters and return streams to a more natural state. It's about time we started to take climate change seriously and get real about where people should be allowed to live under insurance or government protection.

[Hekate]

23. When hubby & I moved to this beautiful location, a gigantic regional fire broke out soon after

Whole neighborhoods where we had shopped for a new home were wiped out by the Thomas Fire — they were view properties in and on high canyons. Just by luck, the house I fell in love with is in a small valley — don’t ask me to explain it, but a retired insurance appraiser who was part of a community information meeting told me it made all the difference to the survival of our neighborhood. Our neighborhood lost only one house and a lot of landscaping. We were evacuated for 2 weeks. 282,000 acres.

In months to come we found out — first from the newspaper, then from our insurance company — that existing customers would retain their coverage, but that the company would not be writing any new fire insurance policies. SMH.

We don’t plan to move, by the way. We were 70 when we bought, and are 76 now. If worst comes to worst, we won’t rebuild — we’ll take whatever insurance money the gigantic corporation chooses to dole out, and sell the land, and find some senior condo in the flatlands.

But here’s the thing that infuriates me — home insurance companies across this nation have raked in the dough for generations…

[Delphinus]

27. Your last sentence ...

they sure have. Don't know about life insurance, but add health insurance to that as well as the home. Wonder if there are stock buybacks like for GM ...

[mahina]

28. Hawaii isn't on the map

Which is upsetting

[sakabatou]

29. So the People would be on the hook, while unable to afford a new many in some areas.