NPR Some residents in coastal areas such as Cameron Parish, La., have raised their homes and taken other measures to make them more resilient to hurricanes. "Just as a human being, if you want to be able to stay where you live or where your job is or where your kids go to school, you want to be able to rebuild your house, you have to have a solvent insurance company that provides good coverage so that you can rebuild." It's just ingrained with everything," says David Marlett, managing director of the Brantley Risk & Insurance Center at Appalachian State University. "That impacts real estate, it impacts construction, it impacts lending. So, when people can't get home insurance, or have inadequate coverage, the consequences can be profound. The shrinking of home insurance options comes at a time when most American families have little in savings, and many can't get a loan to repair a house that's damaged or destroyed. The United States is "marching steadily towards an uninsurable future," says Dave Jones, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the state's former insurance commissioner.Īllstate wouldn't comment on Pratt's case. The state is grappling with a home insurance crisis in the wake of repeated climate-driven storms. NPR Southwest Louisiana's Cameron Parish was badly damaged by Hurricane Laura in 2020. All the while, the rising temperatures driving disasters are caused primarily by burning fossil fuels that insurance companies themselves continue to underwrite and invest in. When homes get destroyed, inflation is making it more expensive to rebuild. People continue moving to coastal regions vulnerable to hurricanes and to rural, forested areas around the country that are prone to wildfires. Meanwhile, the cost of disasters keeps going up. As a result, insurers say they can't increase rates enough to cover the damage occurring in the riskiest places. State agencies regulate the insurance industry, and they are trying to keep rates low for residents, even as weather gets more extreme from global warming. Several factors have converged to make adequate, reasonably priced home insurance harder to get. Some have to move because they can't pay to repair their homes, or else they suffer long-term damage to their finances. And families who don't have adequate home insurance often struggle after disasters. If people can't get insurance, they can't get mortgages. Nationwide, millions of homeowners are having to find different kinds of coverage, which typically come at a higher price with less protection. Earlier this month, the insurance arm of AAA announced it would not renew some "higher exposure" home insurance policies in Florida, and Farmers Insurance announced it will stop offering new home insurance policies in the state and won't renew thousands of existing ones, in part because of rising losses from hurricanes.īloomberg via Getty Images A structure burns during the Oak Fire in Mariposa County last July. Insurance companies in states like Colorado, Louisiana and Florida are paring down business to shield themselves from ballooning losses as climate change fuels more-intense disasters. Homeowners like Pratt are finding out that their longtime insurers have decided not to renew coverage.Ĭalifornia isn't alone. Over the past two years, several big insurers, including Allstate and State Farm, have scaled back their home insurance businesses in California to avoid paying billions for wildfire damage, or have halted sales of new policies altogether. Pratt, like hundreds of thousands of other homeowners in California, now faces the state's growing climate threats with a weaker safety net. Despite this, her insurance carrier dropped her because of wildfire risk. Pratt added a metal roof, traded wood decking for laminate, installed a water tank and a fire hose, and cleared vegetation near the house to make it fire resistant. Beth Pratt Beth Pratt stands outside her home near Yosemite National Park.
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