Senate Banking to Convene Hearing Today On Climate Crisis Becoming a Homeowners Insurance Crisis

September 07, 2023

[Ed. Note: We can pretend that “climate-related disasters in the United States have taken on the look and feel of sci-fi films,” but the truth is that history contains an awful lot of examples of more serious events than ones seen recently. The oceans aren’t deeper. The storms aren’t stronger. Even wildfires are fairly consistently burning about 7 million acres a year, as they have done for quite a long time. If the Maui fires looks like a sci-fi horror film, it’s only because the government blocked the only escape route out of town, and cooked everyone to death in their cars… Maybe we’ll also find a way to blame that decision on a gas that makes up .0417% of the atmosphere. Maybe the insurance cost is going up because the cost to rebuild a house is going up. Maybe, just maybe, there are reasons unrelated to climate for that, but don’t look to central banking policies. No, trust me, it’s the climate driving the costs higher. Uh huh.]

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens Wall Street on Parade

As climate-related disasters in the United States have taken on the look and feel of sci-fi films, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing this morning on the dramatic impact this is having on the ability of homeowners to find and keep affordable homeowners insurance policies.

As a backdrop to the hearing, four days ago Jacob Bogage, a business reporter at the Washington Post, shared these revelations with readers:

“At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events and raise monthly premiums and deductibles.