Property Owners Ignore Climate Risk Amid Insurance Meltdown
Donna LaMountain surveys damage on Pine Island Road in Matlacha, Florida, after Hurricane Ian made landfall in September 2022.
Photographer: Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Getty Images
When Farmers Insurance Group on July 12 said it would stop writing new homeowners policies in Florida, it became the 15th insurer in the state to take that step since early last year. Florida officials fault widespread insurance fraud for the exodus, but Farmers said it needed to “manage risk exposure” in a place where climate change threatens more natural disasters.
Florida’s slow-motion insurance meltdown is happening as new people pour into the places with the greatest risk of flooding, a pattern playing out across the US. Almost 400,000 more people moved into than out of the nation’s most flood-prone counties in 2021 and 2022, double the increase in the preceding two years, according to real estate firm Redfin Corp. Counties vulnerable to wildfires and heat have also seen more people arrive than leave.