Lynn Kirkman And her husband Robert moved to her home near her home forever San Antonio, Texasnine years ago. However, paying her dream property has become much more difficult.
Last year the costs of her house insurance policy rose to the amount $ 1,000Mark a 40% hike. The couple now pays off $ 3,200 A year for reporting. When they bought the house, it cost it $ 1,200.
Why the jump? Insurance companies need more money to pay the damage claims submitted by the customers due to the rapid increase in storm events due to climate change.
In the past decade, hurricanes, droughts, floods, forest fires and winter storms have more than inflicted 200 billion dollars in compensation through Texas – The most expensive in the nation together with FloridaAccording to the information National Centers for Environmental Information at NOAA.
The same story takes place in the whole country. The increase in devastating weather events in conjunction with a flow -related increase in construction costs forces insurance companies to increase interest rates, and in some cases hire the output of guidelines across states and increase financial burdens.
Kirkman, a real estate agent, said $ 1,000 The increase in installments still hurts. She and her husband have stopped eating so much money to save money to make the higher bill, she explained.
“We have no choice,” said Kirkman. “We have to pay it to maintain our loan, but it's just a rip off.”
“Only the beginning”
The number of the so-called billion dollar catastrophe events related to storm has increased steadily US since 1980, as three events 46 billion US dollars in damage.
However, 2023 and 2024 marked an unprecedented destruction with combined 55 events that more than 281 billion US dollars In the case of damage, including five hurricanes that landed in 2024, according to the information NOAA. That is more than all billions of dollars from 1980-1992.
This is because the costs for the repair of home -made homes have increased due to inflation, which is far more expensive for insurance companies to meet claims. The material costs for replacing a roof, for example, have increased by 40% since 2020, according to the National Roofing Contractors Association.
Now the insurance rates are leading to keep up with inflation and risky weather Jeff MastersMeteorologist for Yale Climate Connections, an independent initiative Yale University.
“It just starts and will only accelerate,” he said. “It will be a challenging time to try to insure a home for all our lives.”
A typical example: California largest insurer, State farmIn April, the state Ministry of Insurance called for 17% to cover 17% for coverage 7.6 billion US dollars In damage claims from the Los Angeles Forest fires – the most destructive in US Story. Without a rate increase, these payments would reduce its reserves.
States in the Midwest also experience the financial pinch, which is caused by extreme weather.
In 2020, a derecho line spread intensely, widespread, rapidly moving storms with harmful winch-in less than one day almost 800 miles in the middle west, which leads to an estimated causes $ 11 billion Overall damage so that it is the most expensive thunderstorm event in US Story.
Iowa took it the hardest. Thousands of corn rows were flattened, the interstaties were closed, and houses and companies were damaged by hurricane winds, which approached 140 miles per hour.
Insurers who covered the more than 8,000 houses damaged in Iowa lost 1 billion US dollars This year according to data from the Iowa department for insurance and financial services.
Like most states of the Midwest, Iowa was once considered a relatively safe market for insurers, but that quickly changed when the storms in the region rose.
Iowans is expected to be 19% of 19% before the end of the year. Louisiana And CaliforniaAccording to an April report by Insurify, an online insurance comparison company.
Indeed insurer in Iowa have lost money from 2018-2023, expenses $ 122 on claims for everyone $ 100 After the latest available figures from Insurify, they have taken bonuses.
Small insurers have given up Iowa In terms of concerns, they lack capital to offer plans because the risk of unpredictable weather pattern increases. Large national insurers like American National also leave the middle west. Minnesota And South Dakota.
Brian Rhodesa recruitment agent of the automobile talent in Houston, Texasexperienced the panic of losing the cover Lone Star Condition. The company reported 40% of all storms in the second quarter of 2024 Texasit makes it unsustainable to offer guidelines.
Rhodes said Progressive has hiked his house insurance premiums from approximately $ 2,000 to almost 5,000 dollarsWhat he believed was an attempt to drop politics. It worked. After desperately looking for a new airline, he found a company that commissioned what he is currently paying.
“At first it was like 'Oh crap',” he said. “I'm honest about it. I had a conversation with my wife, like 'Hey, that's not good.'”
“Pay for our stupidity”
The rapid increase in insurance rates does not prevent people from moving new houses in some of the weather areas with the highest risk and building new houses.
In Miami, FloridaNew residential buildings in 2022 by more than 14%, loud Cumming groupA national project management agency. Despite the researchers in the University of Miami The city's forecast will be 60% under water until 2060 due to the climate change caused by climate change.
Florida The residents already pay the highest home ownership prices in the country. The average premiums are projected on top $ 15,000 This year according to insurance. Nevertheless, the new building continues to increase, albeit slower than the increase in 2022.
Masters, the Yale meteorologist, said that Americans across the country will continue to see exploding insurance tariffs. National insurers are forced to pass on the costs to all of their customers in order to subsidize the risk with places like Miami.
“We pay for our stupidity of the building where we shouldn't have built,” he said. “Then we tighten it with more extreme weather.”
As a result, homeowners in the Midwest pay more per capita for insurance in relation to the value of their house than those who live in expensive housing markets in coastal areas, more susceptible to billion dollar disaster, explained Gabriel FilippiExecutive Director of Indiana UniversityEnvironmental Resilience Institute.
“These are the main insurers who try to spread the pain among the installment payers,” he said. “But you can only spread the pain as much before you just don't have to start insure properties.”
This is now happening at alarming speed. Consumers in the tearing codes with the highest risk around the US Today, according to a January report, 80% of the una-renewed rates from January are at the lowest risk in the postcodes. US department of the treasury Federal Insurance Office.
A US Senate Household Committee The report last year warns that increased not renewed interest rates and a lack of available insurance companies that are required to obtain a mortgage US Housing market.
Kirkman, the broker from TexasSaid she would support a guideline in which states justify how many insurers can increase interest rates every year to avoid the 40% price increase that she and her husband experienced last year.
But in the end, she explained, it doesn't matter what happens to house insurance. Kirkman and her husband love their property and pay all charges for insurers to stay.
“We have settled here, so it's all about what we can do,” said Kirkman. “Everyone has to have a place to live, so we just have to absorb it somehow.”
