[link removed]

FAIR
View article on FAIR's website ([link removed])
'Insurance Companies Are Moving to Protect Their Profits in a Short-Term Way': Janine Jackson ([link removed])


Janine Jackson interviewed Green America's Cathy Cowan Becker about insurance and climate disasters for the August 29, 2025, episode ([link removed]) of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

[link removed]



Janine Jackson: The Trump administration's aggressive whistling past the graveyard notwithstanding, climate disruption is still actually happening, as reality doesn't bow to weird political whims. In reality, people have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to insurance companies, money every month their whole working lives, with the idea that if a storm destroys their house, or a fire burns down their business, that will be acknowledged and they can be made whole, based on the insurance they have paid for for precisely this purpose for many years.

And yet here we are, where, as our guest reports, insurance companies are responding to people needing insurance by dropping them, canceling them, and straight up just not paying them, while continuing to monetarily support the industry that's driving the crisis.

So what the heck is happening here, and why do news media make us feel that we're somehow too dumb to understand the problem, or to see a way out of it?

Cathy Cowan Becker is responsible finance campaign director at the group Green America ([link removed]) . She joins us now by phone from Ohio. Welcome to CounterSpin, Cathy Becker.

Cathy Cowan Becker: Thank you so much for having me.
Other Words: Big Insurance Companies Are Fleecing Disaster Survivors — and the Rest of Us

Other Words (7/30/25 ([link removed]) )

JJ: I saw your piece on OtherWords.org, headlined “Big Insurance Companies Are Fleecing Disaster Survivors—and the Rest of Us,” ([link removed]) And I would encourage folks to find that piece. But then I saw the piece–and I was happy to see it carried and reprinted and put in front of people; that's the point–but I saw it in another outlet, and the headline was changed. And listeners know reporters don't write headlines, but this Florida paper gave it the headline, “Insurance Rates Rise Due to Climate Disasters.” And I thought, well, that doesn't sound like precisely what she's saying. There isn't an automatic cause and effect; there are still choices being made.

So my question for you is: What are insurance companies doing right now in the face of climate disasters—and that's plural, disasters, and multifaceted. What are they doing, and how does it stand up against what they might be doing, and what many folks thought they would be doing right now?

CB: Yes, thank you. Those are excellent questions. And I'm also very glad that you are pointing out making the connection to the climate crisis, because that's at the root of this ongoing insurance crisis. The great increase ([link removed]) in the number and severity of climate and weather events across the world—things like floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires—we saw in the United States last year 27 such events ([link removed]) costing $1 billion or more, a total of $182 billion. And that's up from about three of those sorts of events in the 1980s, according to NOAA.

So you're right that when you buy insurance, you expect, if your house or your property is hit with a fire or storm, that your insurance policy will help you replace or rebuild. And insurance is designed for such one-off events, that if my whole neighborhood is buying insurance and my neighbor's house catches fire, all of our premium costs will help go to help that neighbor rebuild. But it is not designed for systemic climate disasters that touch entire neighborhoods and towns and villages, and are becoming more intense and widespread every year.


Cathy Cowan Becker

Cathy Cowan Becker: "What they're paying out in climate-attributable losses is almost the same as what they're taking in from the fossil fuel companies in premiums."

So what insurance companies are doing now, how they're reacting to this right now, they're taking a very short-term view of this unfolding disaster. So instead of looking at what is the root cause and how do we address that, they're just moving to protect their own profits in a short-term way. So they're, as you said, canceling policies, raising rates and not paying claims.

LendingTree just had a report ([link removed]) that homeowners insurance has gone up over 40% in the last six years; that's nationwide. There are many, many reports of companies canceling policies, not renewing policies in climate-vulnerable and really other areas, sometimes based on drone footage that they took of someone's house without the homeowner's knowledge or consent. And then we have insurance companies that are closing claims, many of them legitimate claims that people make; some of them have closing rates over 40%, where someone files a claim and there's simply no payment. That's according to Weiss Ratings ([link removed] BEACH GARDENS%2C Fla.%2C,no payment whatsoever in 2024.) .

The other just really baffling thing insurance companies are doing is they are insuring fossil fuel projects and investing in fossil fuel companies. So they're insuring and investing in fossil fuels. And, as you know, fossil fuels are at the root of the climate disaster. So there is a coalition called Insure Our Future, and they've studied this problem ([link removed]) for several years. They found that the amount that insurance companies, when they actually pay, what they're paying out in climate-attributable losses is almost the same as what they're taking in from the fossil fuel companies in premiums. So it just doesn't make any sense for them to be investing in this industry that is making this problem that they are having to pay for worse. But they are.

So we know from a German nonprofit called Urgewald that tracks fossil fuel investments ([link removed]) worldwide that GEICO’s parent company, which is Berkshire Hathaway, headed by Warren Buffett, they're by far the largest investor in fossil fuels, at $95 billion. State Farm has $20 billion invested in fossil fuels, and other big insurance companies like USAA, AIG, Nationwide, Allstate, Travelers, all have a billion or many billions invested in fossil fuels. I think the second half of your question is, what should they be doing instead? Is that correct?

JJ: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. What we would be looking for them and hoping, as we write our checks every month, that they would be doing?

CB: Yeah, exactly. So the No. 1 thing, the first thing they should do, is to stop insuring and investing in fossil fuel companies that are making this climate crisis worse. This is to insure their longer-term future, insure everyone else's longer-term future.

So big institutional investors, insurance companies, really have a role to play on where this kind of capital and funding goes. So instead of investing in fossil fuels, they could be investing in resiliency projects to make local communities, help them adapt to climate change. Things like levies or public works that would help save major storm systems, that would help cities deal with increased rainfall. They could be investing in that. They could be investing in clean energy projects and energy efficiency projects that lower the carbon pollution that's causing climate change. So, basically, instead of sending their institutional capital to make the problem worse, they could be sending it to solutions that make it better.

So another set of things they could do is to work with policy makers to create an all-hazard insurance ([link removed]) . So many people don't know that in order to get flood damage covered, you have to have separate flood insurance policy. Your regular policy doesn't cover that. And there's also earthquake damage, that's also a separate policy.
NBC: Under water: How FEMA’s outdated flood maps incentivize property owners to take risks

NBC (8/12/25 ([link removed]) )

And on top of that, the FEMA flood insurance maps are very out of date ([link removed]) . So places that are now susceptible to flooding are not shown on these flood insurance maps.

And so as a result, only 2% of people ([link removed]) in Asheville, North Carolina, for example, and only 3% of people ([link removed]) in Kerr County, Texas—both of which, as most people know, had recent major flood damage, flash flooding, as the result of tropical storms and hurricanes that came near where they were—hardly any of those people had flood insurance. And that means their claims are not going to be paid. And that is a real travesty.

And so what we need is an all-hazards insurance, whether that's public or private, where you don't have to have several different policies. You have one policy, and it covers fires, floods, earthquakes, even terrorism, just any sort of hazard that faces people.

And then, finally, is public policy. So recently, Florida passed a spate of what they call “insurance reforms ([link removed]) ,” but basically those laws are making it harder for people to sue when their insurance company doesn't pay a claim, and instead they're forced into unfair arbitration.

And so, instead, insurance companies could be offering people incentives, like, say, a break on their premium rates, to prepare their homes for climate disaster. So things like fortified roofs, or paying to trim nearby vegetation or install an additional sump pump. People could afford to do that if they got a break on their insurance rates. And then the companies wouldn't have as many claims, because these houses would be better prepared for climate disasters. And there's a program in Alabama called Strengthen Alabama Homes ([link removed]) that shows the success of that approach. So those are some things insurance companies could be doing instead.

JJ: I would ask you, though, what is their business model? Is there something baked into what big insurance companies see as their business model that allows them, or encourages them, to pit policy holders against what I'm understanding as profits?

Because listening to what you're saying, it sounds like insurance is a bait and switch. You pay for it every month, but then when you need it, they say, “Oh, no, no, now you need it? No, we're not going to do that.” Is that something that is baked into insurance, or is that something that companies could do differently if they chose?

CB: Yeah. Well, it's a question of the stock market.

There's kind of two models for insurance companies. So some are stock insurance ([link removed]) , which means they're owned by shareholders, they're traded on the stock market for a profit. And so they are under great pressure to take a quarterly approach, a very short-term approach, and just try to increase profits. And that's what clearly a number of them are doing.

There's also a model called mutual insurance ([link removed]) , which is kind of how insurance started, where the insurance company is owned by its policy holders. It's not traded on the market. There's less of an immediate pressure for short-term profits.

That's not totally a guarantee that they will always do the right thing, because it may depend on who those policy holders are. So, for example, Liberty Mutual has a lot of policy holders ([link removed]) that are fossil fuel companies, and they provide a lot of insurance to fossil fuel companies. And so they are actively making the problem worse that way, in terms of exacerbating climate change. But in general, a mutual insurance company will be less driven by that profit incentive.

JJ: And I wanted to ask you, in your piece for OtherWords.org, for Green America, you talk about, there's a difference between bigger and smaller insurers, and there are different things that folks who are looking for insurance can look out for. What are some of those ideas, in terms of, you're looking for an insurance company, where—climate disruption is happening; it's not like it's going to turn off tomorrow, it's going to happen, floods, heat, all of this. We're not going back on it. There's going to just be more and more of it.

And I want to add, also, not being able to be insured is a thing for people. So in terms of news we can use, as individuals, and as maybe small business owners, what are you looking for in an insurer? What are the sort of tabs or things to look out for, in terms of what you're going to get from an insurance company?

CB: So we encourage people to look locally for your local and regional insurance companies, many of them mutual insurance companies. Because they are local, they're less likely to treat policy holders as a number, because they live in the same towns and the same neighborhoods.

And also, these smaller companies don't have enormous advertising budgets. So they don't have to make a huge profit in order to hire an A-list Hollywood actor to star in an amusing commercial that's aired nationwide. They're not doing it that way. So they're not household names, but many of them have been quietly doing business in their community for decades, some even a century.

So what we tell people to do is, well, first to shop around. So don't just go with the first one that you know about. Call several different insurance brokers in your area. Ask them for quotes from local and regional insurance companies. And the reason to call more than one agent is, different agents work with different companies. So that'll give you a better idea of what's available in your area.
Consumer Reports: Worried Your Home Insurance Company Might Cancel Your Policy? Dealing With Skyrocketing Premiums? Here’s What to Do Next.

Consumer Reports (11/1/24 ([link removed]) )

There are things you can do to save money. So bundle home or renters and auto insurance. If you bundle insurance ([link removed]) , that saves money. Use any discounts you have from things like AAA, AARP, an alumni association. If you can't pay one annual lump sum upfront, pay in monthly installments. Make sure your quote is for adequate coverage to rebuild completely if your property is a total loss. And keep in mind that construction and labor costs are going up.

A couple of other things you can do is check the company's ratings in AM Best ([link removed]) , make sure that they are financially secure, they're not going to go out of business in two months. And also, Weiss Ratings ([link removed]) has listings of nonpayment of claims rates for companies, for most large companies. And so if you find that a company has over 40% in nonpayment of claims, avoid that company.

And then, finally, if you get a non-renewal notice from your insurance company, there are several things you can do. (This is from Consumer Reports ([link removed]) .) You can call them and ask for a written explanation. You can ask for any photos or videos they have. If their explanation isn't accurate, file an appeal. If it is accurate, find out how you can remedy the problem, and then do it, and show them that you did it. And also ask for an extension on the non-renewal, so you have time to shop for a new company. And do shop, even if you're trying to resolve it with your original company, do still shop for a new company. So those are some practical things that people can do during this time of great chaos and transition.

JJ: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for that. And finally, I want to shout out Chicago Crusader reporter Stephanie Gadlin, who reported ([link removed]) how, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as you were just talking about, a lot of people learned that their homeowner policies didn't include flood damage, and how the rebuilding has focused on higher-ground neighborhoods, and it's left out a lot of Black communities. Richard Rothstein ([link removed]) , listeners will know, has reported and worked ([link removed]) for many years on how housing and insurance can often leave out race and racial discrimination as a consideration. And that has to do with the way media talk about these issues that we're talking about.

And I would just ask you, finally, are there big misunderstandings that you face? What would you hope that news reporting, talking about this issue of insurance and climate change, what would you like them to do more of? What would you like them to avoid? What are your general thoughts about reporting on this set of issues?
CFA: EXPOSED: A Report on 1.6 Trillion Dollars of Uninsured American Homes

Consumer Federation of America (3/11/24 ([link removed]) )

CB: First, tell the stories of people. So as insurance rates go up, people have to have insurance in order to have a mortgage. And that prices a lot of people out of having a mortgage, especially young people and people of color, the populations to drop first from being able to own their own homes. So tell that story.

And there are people who go without insurance, it's called going bare. And so Consumer Federation of America has a report ([link removed]) about that showing, I think it's 7.4% ([link removed]) —don't quote me on that, because that's off the top of my head—there's people going without insurance at all, and then one storm and their home is gone.

So one solution to this is wrapped up in a bill in New York State called the Insure Our Communities Act ([link removed]) . And this bill would require insurance companies to phase out insuring and investing in fossil fuels, but instead it would require them to do a certain amount of investing in their communities. And this is modeled off of the Community Reinvestment Act ([link removed]) that requires banks to invest a certain amount in their communities. The Community Reinvestment Act, that was passed back in the '70s to try to do away with redlining. And so this would kind of take that idea to insurance, and get insurance companies to do the same thing. So those are the kinds of solutions we’re looking for.

JJ: And that we would hope that media would talk about, yeah? And put before people.

CB: Yeah, exactly. And so I guess a reporter can't write about that if they don't know about that, but look into that.

JJ: All right, then. Well, we've been speaking with Cathy Cowan Becker. She's responsible finance campaigns director at the group Green America. They're online at GreenAmerica.org ([link removed]) . Cathy Becker, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

CB: Happy to do it. Thanks for having me.


Read more ([link removed])

Share this post: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Twitter"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Twitter" alt="Twitter" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Facebook"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Facebook" alt="Facebook" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Pinterest"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Pinterest" alt="Pinterest" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="LinkedIn"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="LinkedIn" alt="LinkedIn" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Google Plus"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Google Plus" alt="Google Plus" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Instapaper"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Instapaper" alt="Instapaper" class="mc-share"></a>
​

© 2021 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you signed up for email alerts from
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Our mailing address is:
FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201
New York, NY 10001

FAIR's Website ([link removed])

FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today ([link removed]) .

Follow us on Twitter ([link removed]) | Friend us on Facebook ([link removed])

change your preferences ([link removed])
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
[link removed]
unsubscribe ([link removed]) .