Floods like the one in Baie-Saint-Paul, about 90 kilometres northeast of Quebec City, helped drive up insurance claims from extreme weather in 2023 to the fourth-highest total on record, according to a new report by the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
In total, insured losses from extreme weather events exceeded $3 billion in Canada for the second straight year.
The report underscores concerns about the growing economic cost of weather-related disasters made more frequent and severe by climate change — and the rising cost of insurance coverage for homeowners.
In some cases, homeowners are struggling to get coverage at all.
Florida’s state run insurance company just became it’s single largest insurer last year because all the for-profit companies are fleeing, they tripled the number of properties they covered between 2020 and 2023. The average house insurance in the state is something like $6000 USD at this point, and still rising.
climate change is like pressure building in a bottle. You can only cork it for so long before there’s some kind of structural failure and the champagne is all over the floor with broken glass everywhere.
And the quicker it pops, the less collateral damage there will be, metaphorically speaking.
The insurance industry needs to fail sooner rather than later.
Sounds like it won’t be long now…
CNN - The US Senate Budget Committee is launching an investigation into whether Florida’s state-backed home and property insurance company has enough money in the bank to withstand future disasters, as scientists warn warming oceans and sea level rise are making storms more destructive.
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation exists as a so-called insurer of last resort - if owners cannot convince a private insurance company to cover their property, Citizens will step in. It insures about 1.3 million policyholders in the state, who typically pay more money for a policy that covers less.
But as coastlines disappear and storms get wetter and more dangerous, risk is through the roof for many of the properties Citizens insures, putting intense financial pressure on the state-backed company. During a March press conference, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “I think most people know Citizens has not been solvent.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/30/business/florida-insurance-senate-investigation-climate/index.html
There’s a stupid idea… Ignoring professionals who spend their lives trying to identify and mitigate risk… It’s the same reason you never co-sign a loan for anything – if the bank says someone is at a high risk of default, don’t fucking ignore them, and don’t sign the paperwork.