Data Shows Climate Change is Raising Insurance Costs for Homeowners and Business Owners
Costs for homeowner insurance are rising, while an increasing amount of property in states like North Carolina and Rhode Island is becoming effectively uninsurable, due to the effects of climate-change-fueled storms and record flooding. The critical National Flood Insurance Program is failing to keep up.
That’s the message delivered by U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and U.S. Representative Deborah Ross (D-NC2) last week at a roundtable moderated by NC League of Conservation Voters and Partners for Environmental Justice at the Walnut Creek Wetlands Center in Raleigh.
The Cost of Climate Change
Whitehouse noted that both states are subject to rain bursts sudden heavy amounts of precipitation in a short period of time that can flood rivers and overwhelm sewage treatment facilities. Both states are also subject to rising sea levels, coastal storms, and erosion. “Those are familiar topics to you here in North Carolina – upland river flooding from rain bursts and coastal erosion and storms tearing away at your coastal communities,” he said.
Dan Crawford, NCLCV’s Senior Director of Public Affairs pointed out that North Carolina now has the third highest rate of property insurance policy cancellations in the country. In some coastal counties more than one in 10 homeowners lost their coverage in 2023.
“The message is clear: You can’t solve the insurance crisis without also addressing the climate crisis,” Crawford said. “Rising risk means rising cost, and unless we take action to make our communities more resilient and reduce the pollution driving these disasters, North Carolinians will continue to pay that price.”
More Extreme Weather, Unless We Act
Just this month, a routine nor’easter storm not even a hurricane stripped ocean beaches of sand, inundated areas with floodwaters and pushed seawater over dunes and roads along North Carolina’s coast. “Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, eight unoccupied beachfront houses fell in Buxton, five of which collapsed within 45 minutes of each other. Another unoccupied house gave way on Oct. 3 in Buxton, bringing the total number of houses that have succumbed to encroaching ocean waters to 21 within the past five years,” reported the Coastal Review.
Unless we act to bring climate-changing carbon pollution under control, our future will hold more and more of these events and we will pay the price directly in rising costs of homeownership.
