Inaction on Climate Change Raises Homeowners’ Insurance Costs
Senate Democrats detail how climate crisis could impact entire economy at spotlight hearing
WASHINGTON – Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today will hold a hearing entitled “Climate Risk, Crashing Markets: The Insurance Crisis Threatening the U.S. Economy” The hearing will detail how inaction on climate change is creating an insurance crisis that risks cascading into an economy-wide shock. In response, Carly Fabian, senior insurance policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program, issued the following statement:
“National awareness of the home insurance crisis is growing rapidly, but, as the crisis deepens, Congress must translate this awareness into urgent action. Households reeling from disasters are already making difficult choices about how to budget for repairs and insurance costs. In vulnerable areas, people are grappling with increasingly challenging choices about when to move, where to live, and how to build with little actionable climate data. Without acting now to mitigate climate change, the options left to adapt to an increasingly uninsurable world will start to feel impossible.
“As more communities risk becoming uninsurable, the economic necessity of reducing carbon emissions has never been more apparent. Pricing our way out of climate change through higher insurance costs will only kick the can further down the road without investments in climate mitigation. As the Trump administration attempts to bury the financial costs of climate disasters, federal and state policymakers should continue to put these costs in the spotlight and advance solutions to ensure safe and sustainable communities.”
Further Resources:
- Public Citizen: Mapping the Insurance Crisis
- Equitable & Just Insurance Initiative: A Guide for State and Local Governments to Protect People Financially in the Lead-up to and Aftermath of Climate Disasters
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