ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

If you want to buy a house, you probably need a mortgage. And if you want to get a mortgage, you need homeowner’s insurance, which is hard when insurance companies decide they no longer want to do business where you live.

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BETH PRATT: I just got a letter – not even a, hey, we want these things done. It was, we’re not renewing you.

SHAPIRO: That’s Beth Pratt speaking with NPR last year. She lives outside Yosemite National Park in California, where wildfires are becoming more frequent. Her insurer of 31 years said the fire risk in her area was too great and simply declined to cover her anymore.

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PRATT: These are not luxury items for myself or others. You have to have insurance. So, you know, I think that policies and how we insure people probably has to change.

SHAPIRO: Even if private insurance companies stop short of pulling out of a region, they’re often raising premiums. Often they say that’s to cover the increasing losses from weather-related property damage.

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SHAPIRO: Home insurance costs across the country are up 21% since 2015. It’s even more in high-risk areas like hurricane-prone Florida, where insurance cost more than 3 1/2 times the national average last year. And the thing is, climate change is making storms and wildfires more intense and more destructive. Last year, the U.S. had a record 28 disasters that cost more than a billion dollars in damage.

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SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: Climate risk makes things uninsurable. No insurance makes things unmortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy.

SHAPIRO: In a Senate budget committee hearing last month, Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat from Rhode Island, compared the state of home insurance today to another recent housing market disaster.

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WHITEHOUSE: This all sounds eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the mortgage meltdown of 2008.

SHAPIRO: CONSIDER THIS – As the risk of climate-related disasters goes up, so does the cost of home insurance. Can anything be done to fix that cycle? From NPR, I’m Ari Shapiro.

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SHAPIRO: It’s CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I’m Ari Shapiro. This week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is holding a summit to address the spike in home insurance costs. Acting HUD Secretary Adrianne Todman took a break from the meetings to talk with me about what her department can do to help break this cycle.

Thanks for joining us.

ADRIANNE TODMAN: Oh, it’s my pleasure.

SHAPIRO: So if an insurance company decides that everyone’s home in a certain area is at high risk of burning down or blowing away, what is wrong with that company saying, you know what? This is just a gamble we’re not going to be willing to take. We’re out of here.

TODMAN: Well, the fact that you’re asking that question is exactly why we felt the need to have this summit because, at the end of the day, what’s really happening is increased insurance costs are now impacting our general ability to provide housing affordably to Americans across the country.

So we have first-time homeowners who are unable to purchase a home because of the unexpected cost of insurance. We have some of our existing affordable housing providers, who already provide affordable housing, seeing their insurance costs go up by, you know, levels they’ve never seen before. And they’re having to make some financial decisions about what they invest in. Do they do some of the repairs that they need to do? Do they keep the level of staffing that they have? And none of that is ever good for tenants.

SHAPIRO: Insurance prices have gone way up, but is that necessarily tied to climate change and risk? I mean, do these two things correlate closely?

TODMAN: Well, you know, we’ve had some of the insurance experts come and say absolutely, that they are keenly aware of the impact that extreme weather is having on insurance costs and replacement costs, as well. They’re keenly aware of rebuilding in certain neighborhoods that perhaps folks should not be rebuilding in is also creating some risk that they feel is unnecessary.

So we’ve been able to hear from both sides, the folks who are providing affordable housing and also those individuals that represent the insurance industry. And it’s been a very fruitful conversation so far. And our goal, at the end of the day, is to see, are there areas where we can seek to improve the current condition of the impact of – insurance is having on affordability?

SHAPIRO: Climate change is real, and the impact on insurance rates is clear. But have you also seen any evidence that insurance companies may be using climate change as an excuse just to gouge homeowners and hike prices?

TODMAN: Well, I think that’s one of one of the pieces of conversation that came up this morning – was, we don’t have the data to really determine that. We don’t have the data holistically or at the micro level, the neighborhood level, to know, are insurers doing that? So, you know, some people will say, yes, that’s exactly what they’re doing. But we don’t have the data yet to suggest that. And what, in fact, some of the insurers shared is that…

SHAPIRO: Can you get that data? I mean, what’s it going to take to get that data?

TODMAN: Well, I think that was a large part of the conversation this morning. Who has that data? Does it exist? And again, the goal of the summit is to explore all of these different avenues.

SHAPIRO: I know that you want to be a fair arbiter between parties that are sometimes at odds. But when you look at the sharply rising insurance rates, do you think, well, yeah, that accurately reflects the increasing risk from severe weather that’s caused by climate change? Or do you think, this is totally disconnected from reality?

TODMAN: I will tell you that some of the stories I’ve heard seem rather curious.

SHAPIRO: Rather curious – that’s a diplomatic phrase.

TODMAN: (Laughter) I mean, there – and again, I say that because as a – you know, at my level, data matters. And I don’t necessarily want to say someone is doing something unseemly until it’s demonstrated that that’s what they’re doing. But, you know, as I’ve traveled the country, I’ve listened to our development community. I listen to single-family homeowners. It is rather curious, the level of the increase that happens even year over year.

Something else that’s rather curious is where the increases are occurring. I’m hearing that – from some of our affordable housing providers that some of the insurance increase may be happening in certain types of their housing portfolio but not all part of their housing portfolio.

SHAPIRO: So the steepest increases don’t necessarily correspond to the greatest risks.

TODMAN: That is correct. And so one of the reasons why I wanted to make sure we came together today is to have, really, a first look of what the issues are with everybody who has equities in rising insurance costs at the table. You know, there’s already been some healthy debate and pushback about whether or not some of these increases are truly representing risk. My goal is to have the dialogue so that we can do what we need to do with the powers we have and the perch that we have to make a difference for the American people who are counting on us.

SHAPIRO: Adrianne Todman is the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Thank you for your time.

TODMAN: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink, with original reporting from Rebecca Hersher, Michael Copley, and Nathan Rott. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon, with help from Neela Banerjee. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

And one more thing before we go – you can now enjoy the CONSIDER THIS newsletter. We still help you break down a major story of the day, but you’ll also get to know our producers and hosts and some moments of joy from the All Things Considered team. You can sign up at npr.org/considerthisnewsletter.

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SHAPIRO: It’s CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I’m Ari Shapiro.

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