Last month — before the current fire disaster, note — the Senate Budget Committee put out a report titled Next to Fall: The Climate-Driven Insurance Crisis Is Here — and Getting Worse. Here’s just a bit —
In communities across the United States, homeowners are already facing a climate-driven insurance affordability crisis. As climate-related risks have increased, so, too, have climate losses. Some estimates suggest that “[i]nsured losses from natural disasters in the U.S. now routinely approach $100 billion a year, compared to $4.6 billion in 2000.” This has, in turn, translated to an accompanying increase in insurance premiums. Between 2020 and 2023, insurance premiums in the top 20 percent of counties for climate risk increased by 22 percent, and studies have found that insurance premiums have increased 40 percent faster than inflation. Homeowners have, on average, “seen their premiums spike 21 percent since 2015. . . . That
means ever more people are forgoing coverage, leaving them vulnerable and driving prices even higher as the number of people paying premiums and sharing risk shrinks.” Staggeringly, around 67 percent of homes in the United States are now underinsured.
In other words, this isn’t just a Florida or California problem. It’s a national problem, and it needs a national solution, which isn’t going to happen in the next four years.
I believe this is the Bloomberg article that was linked in Senator Whitehouse’s “x.” I can’t read it behind the subscriber paywall. Here’s one I could read, Climate change tests the insurance industry and could lead to the ‘next big economic shock’ for the U.S. at Yahoo News. The MAGAts are still pretending climate change is a joke, but you can’t fool bean-counters.
Meanwhile, House GOP puts Medicaid, ACA, climate measures on chopping block, says Politico. House Republicans are the new flying monkeys, I tell you.
See also As a Climate Scientist, I Knew It Was Time to Leave Los Angeles at the New York Times.
Oh good, more incoming, and more graveyard humor after the big funeral. Let me see, they want big down payments, loan rates are the highest in years, insurance (which borrowers must have) is high and getting higher, and property taxes show no signs of cost reduction. You might as well get a Home-Owner's Association bill while you are at it. Thanatos will get a big chuckle out of all of that dark stuff. Oh, and personal debt is at an all- time high. None of this sounds good to me, but I am not an economist. I am not a climate scientist either, but I sure enjoyed reading from the wise one who bailed on Southern California before the inevitable climate chaos he wisely saw coming set in. He is right. Climate Chaos risks are everywhere, and most are even a surprise for the experts. Risk management is called insurance, and the security that comes from risk management is getting more expensive fast. Even life insurance for men costs more as life expectancy for males is decreasing. Does anyone want to guess why?
It is a bad time for the party in power, that is all I know. It is a good thing they have that new Department called DOGE, because they are going to have a lot of incoming to dodge. That's a homophone they need to be homophobic about. They might want to warm up for it with a visit to the primate pavilion at the zoo. A bit of practice never hurts.