Blown Away: How Global Warming is Affecting Insurance Coverage

A new Environmental Defense report, Blown Away: How Global Warming Is Eroding the Availability of Insurance Coverage in America’s Coastal States, documents an unsettling trend. With record losses and payouts far outstripping premiums in recent years, insurance rates are rising and many companies are moving out of America’s coastal states.

Allstate, one of the nation’s largest insurance providers, has cut off coverage for 40,000 coastal homeowners in New York, and is no longer writing any new policies in Florida. Other areas have found premiums rising anywhere from 50 percent to 1000 percent.

The increases are a result of ever-more-frequent weather events, and the succession of hurricanes from 2004 onward — seven of the 10 most costly hurricanes ever occurred in 2004 and 2005 — and insurers are hesitant to finance homes and businesses given the likelihood of deadly and destructive hurricanes hitting every year.

This report examines the extent of insurers’ losses, how that has affected insurance rates in 9 coastal states, and what the next few years might bring forth.