As climate shocks get worse, insurance companies are increasingly dropping homeowners facing risks of hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. Now, the results of a congressional investigation, shared exclusively with The New York Times, have made it possible to see where insurance policy nonrenewals are happening — creating a new map of the climate crisis.
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nonrenewal rates have risen steadily since 2020. Rates have roughly doubled compared with 2018 in some counties, driven primarily by wildfire risk.
The map below shows rates of home insurance nonrenewals in recent years. You can explore your state and areas with the highest rates in the country, including California and Western states facing wildfires and Eastern Seaboard states like Florida and the Carolinas with elevated hurricane risk.
Source: U.S. Senate Budget Committee
The insurance crisis has also spread far beyond the coasts, with rates of dropped policies jumping in many U.S. counties over the past several years.
Those spikes may come after a large disaster hits, but not always. In some places, such as Oklahoma, they coincide with growing premiums, but in others, insurers and state regulators may keep prices flat while dropping policies.
Communities deemed too dangerous to insure risk seeing property values fall, along with local tax revenue, stripping money from schools, police and other basic services. As insurers pull back from areas across the country exposed to climate change risks, where policies aren’t getting renewed is a key predictor of the disruption to come.
Read the full article on how home insurance nonrenewals are rising across the country.
See the rest of the country:
Nonrenewal rates rose in 46 states in 2023, a year with a record number of high-cost disasters, and many states have seen increased rates since 2018.
In the charts below, each state is on its own scale. To compare all the states on the same scale, click the “shared scale” button.
Home Insurance Nonrenewals in Every State
States ranked by 2023 nonrenewal rates
Florida
1 in 33 nonrenewed
District of Columbia
1 in 81
Source: U.S. Senate Budget Committee
Methodology
Data from the Senate Budget Committee includes 23 of the 41 insurers from which the committee sought information. In counties with fewer than 500 policies reported, the state nonrenewal rates are displayed. Figures for Alaska display the state average only.
In addition to insurer decisions to end policies, nonrenewals can include homeowners shopping around due to price spikes, but committee staff members said the vast majority of the nonrenewals reported through their investigation were initiated by insurers.
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.