Climate chaos is making our lives uninsurable.


** News of the world environment
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NEWSLETTER | JUNE 9, 2023
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** Future Uncertain
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In late May, State Farm announced ([link removed]) that it would stop offering new homeowner insurance coverage throughout the state of California, where I live. My first thought, as a State Farm customer, was personal — what would this mean for me?

Once assured that my existing coverage was safe, at least for now, I began pondering the bigger implications of the news. What does it mean for the state’s largest insurer to stop insuring homes in the state? Would State Farm start dropping existing customers, too? Would other insurers follow their lead?

State Farm’s decision caps a larger trend in the Golden State. Allstate, the state’s fourth largest property insurance provider, quietly paused offering new homeowner, condominium, and commercial insurance policies in in 2022. Chubb and American International Group stopped renewing policies for certain high value California homes last year as well. And for years, insurers have been declining to renew coverage for homeowners in regions with higher wildfire risks.

I can hardly blame them. The devastating economic toll of climate change has begun to come into clear view in California. We’ve had record-breaking wildfires that have razed entire communities. We’ve experienced torrential rain, and the flooding and landslides that come with it. All the while, home prices and rebuilding costs have continued to rise. Increasingly, the math just doesn’t add up for private insurance companies. As former California insurance commissioner Dave Jones told Vox ([link removed]) , “We’re steadily marching toward an uninsurable future, not just in California but throughout the United States.”

That’s a problem. Because it means people across the country all of us — particularly lower-income Americans in climate-vulnerable places — could soon be at greater risk not only from the physical dangers of climate change, but also from the catastrophic economic losses that can accompany natural disasters.

Where do we go from here? Pricey state policies may fill in some of the coverage gaps, but in the long term, We will need to think bigger. We’ll need to increase the fire-safety of our homes. We will want to stop developing in high-risk zones. And more likely than not, we’ll have to consider fraught options like managed retreat.

Zoe Loftus-Farren
Managing Editor, Earth Island Journal

Photo by Blue~Canoe ([link removed])
TOP STORIES ()
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** Land to the Landless ([link removed])
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Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement is gaining ground, both as a force for agrarian reform and as a movement for social and environmental justice.
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** Farming Octopus ([link removed]) es ([link removed])
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As a seafood company pushes to open the world’s first commercial octopus farm in Spain, animal welfare activists and environmental researchers say the time to stop octopus farming is before it ever starts.

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** Lessons from Whaling Books ([link removed])
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Whaling under sail devasted whale populations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Logbooks kept by whaleship captains are now providing bottomless material for marine and climate researchers, including those hoping to help these ocean giants recover.
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ICYMI ()
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** Uh Oh ... UFO! ([link removed])
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Wait, the US government has “possession of ‘intact and partially intact’ alien vehicles”? Does this mean there really is someone (or something) “out there”? Mind officially boggled!

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Photo: Department of Defense

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** Early Bloomers ([link removed])
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Rhododendrons are iconic to the Indian Himalayas. For generations their red blossoms have reliably heralded the arrival of spring and played a prominent role in spiritual life there. Now, they are sending a different message.

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Photo: Maureen Barlin ([link removed])


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