Insurers Charge Low Credit Homeowners Twice As Much for the Same Policy In many cases, a low credit score is more expensive than high disaster risk

New research from @cplusc.bsky.social & @consumerfed.bsky.social shows that average across the US it is MORE EXPENSIVE to have a poor credit score than to live in a zip code with a high disaster risk:
climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/insurers-c...

Change in Average Home Insurance Premiums - Minnesota ZIP Codes, 2018-2022 This map shows how average premiums changed across Minnesota between 2018 and 2022. Hover over a ZIP code for details. Click the buttons below to see maps depicting average premiums in 2018 and 2022....

Glad to share a new Public Citizen piece on Minnesota's insurance crisis. Authored by one of our climate & insurance interns, it proposes reforms for a new state task force and features maps from @kennystancil.bsky.social

Article: www.citizen.org/article/clim...

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Research Director - Climate - Public Citizen - Career Page Research director

Interested in investigative research and the impact of climate change on insurance? Come work with me at Public Citizen! We're hiring a Research Director position, a position ideal for former reporters publiccitizen.applytojob.com/apply/R9dmHL...

"The climate crisis is spiraling out of control and taking our home insurance with it....Where are the regulators?"

Great clip of @kennystancil.bsky.social explaining how, despite the growing cost of climate change, insurers are making record profits

We need more data, not less. We need stronger oversight, not weaker. The costs of climate change are mounting — and the longer we look away, the more expensive they’ll become.

There is ultimately no way to hide the reality of climate change from people experiencing disasters and paying through higher insurance premiums. But cutting the tools to monitor the crisis will delay emergency planning, resilience investments, and data-driven solutions.

And losing this data won't just affect the coasts. Wisconsin's Congressman Scott Fitzgerald is sponsoring a bill that would prevent any further data collection. In maps we recently published with federal data, Wisconsin already stands out nationally for claims frequency.

Unsurprisingly, these state officials hail from state struggling with climate costs. As the Louisiana's commissioner calls for federal insurance data collection to be abolished, Louisiana leads the nation in risk of insurance withdrawal

Taking away public climate data will drive up insurance costs. Then cutting federal data collection on insurance will hide the fully tally of those costs.

State insurance commissioners should be out in front fighting to preserve this data. Instead, a group of commissioners has aligned on a different priority: gutting the one federal office responsible for tracking the costs of climate change via insurance.

Without public climate data that insurers rely on, insurers will only raise rates and retreat faster. This will drive up the costs for the public through insurance premiums. Less data = higher costs.

Proud to share a new piece with @kennystancil.bsky.social on the need for federal data on climate costs. We compare the public officials urging DOGE to cut it with the insurance crises unfolding in their states www.citizen.org/article/atta...

Looking forward to this @ThirdActOrg talk with NY Lt. Gov. Delgado and Bill McKibben on energy affordability
thirdact.org/nyc/events/lt-gov-delgado-bill-mckibben-in-conversation-30-minutes/

Looking to see how the home insurance crisis is affecting your area?

Check out these new interactive maps we released, with incredible work from @kennystancil.bsky.social

NAIC calls for scrapping of FIO among 2025 federal priorities The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has outlined its 2025 federal legislative and regulatory priorities, including a push to eliminate the Federal Insurance Office.

With wildfires raging and insurance markets melting across the country, state regulators should be focused on doing their jobs, not trying to prevent the federal government from conducting surveys and generating solutions.

www.theinsurer.com/ti/news/naic...

New York’s insurance carriers provide stability in an unstable world | Opinion In a world marked by uncertainty, New York's insurance industry remains a steadfast force for stability.

Seems like it should be harder to claim you're a "force for stability" when you're dropping homes all over the country... www.lohud.com/story/opinio...

Brace yourself for the corporate crime spree

Great blog. Crazy that insurance companies still get to do this

The US faces ‘devastating’ losses for weather forecasts, federal workers say “If these cuts continue, you will feel them personally.”

devastating for our ability to respond to the home insurance crisis www.theverge.com/news/622990/...

Attacking the CFPB will make insurance consumers more vulnerable

As homeowners lose coverage, banks could “force-place” expensive backup insurance, with little incentive to keep the price reasonable.

Without oversight from the CFPB, this could be ripe for abuse.

thehill.com/business/513...

Climate risk is financial risk

US Treasury Department withdraws from global regulatory climate change group The U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday it was withdrawing from a global body of central banks and regulators devoted to exploring ways to police climate risk in the financial system.

After two weeks under Trump, the one entity federal entity responsible for monitoring insurance markets appears set to bury its head in the sand on climate change.

That’s a recipe for financial disaster.

Buried, amid the more immediate casualties and clearly visible damage of modern wildfire disasters, are the far more numerous victims of the secondary harms and "chronic emergencies" that subsequently unfold for months and years thereafter.

Climate-fueled insurance cost hikes putting American dream 'out of reach' As communities across the Los Angeles area continued to grapple with catastrophic wildfires, the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday released the most far-reaching report ever on the climate emergenc...

There's no doubt that insurance premiums will go up as climate costs grow.

While insurers will surely find ways to profit, there's a real question about whether vulnerable people can pay higher costs indefinitely.

And what happens to the economy if they can't?

Voters Face Rising Home Insurance Costs and Prefer Resources for Public Over Private Insurance Fifty-five percent of voters say that their home or rental insurance premiums have gone up in the last five years.

Fascinating new data showing a bipartisan majority prefer a public approach to home insurance

Incredible coverage on a disturbing trend:

Nobody’s insurance rates are safe from climate change » Yale Climate Connections Even if you haven’t suffered direct damage, you’re paying for increasingly extreme weather.

Thanks to climate change, we're barreling towards an insurance crisis, as I wrote for @climateconnections.bsky.social today. It's not just California and Florida – nobody's insurance rates are safe 🧵(1/13)

How Can We Reform Property Insurance to Adapt to Climate Change? Climate change is fueling more frequent and extreme disasters. Insurers are responding by dropping communities and raising premiums.

The insurance crisis is an "everything" problem. We need a whole spectrum of solutions. This is why we're organizing with groups across the country to discuss solutions that put the public first shelterforce.org/2024/10/25/h...

L.A. Is Burning. Will Insurance Companies Take Advantage? Popular narrative suggests insurance companies have to raise rates due to fire risk. In reality, the companies are doing pretty well.

Insurance companies have been really good at presenting themselves alternatively as hapless financial victims and omniscient entities whose models cannot be questioned. Both narratives deserve scrutiny. newrepublic.com/article/1900...