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Paying a High Premium: How Climate Change Is Crippling Homeowner's Insurance and Fueling a Housing Crisis

Author

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  • Alla Semenova

Abstract

This paper examines the growing impacts of climate change in the US homeowner's insurance industry. As climate change-driven weather extremes and natural disasters have accelerated in their frequency and severity, they have inflicted increasingly more residential property damage and destruction, leading to surging losses and claims payouts for the US homeowner's insurance industry. Faced with worsening underwriting performance, the US home insurers have responded with higher homeowner's insurance premiums, reduced home insurance coverage, policy non-renewals, exits from high-risk geographic areas, and other changes to their business practices. Such climate-driven actions by home insurers have led to a crisis of homeowner's insurance affordability, availability, and protection. This crisis further undermines homeownership affordability, eroding homeowner finances, and threatening the stability of the US financial system. By focusing on the US homeowner's insurance industry, this paper provides a case study on the growing economic costs and impacts of climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Alla Semenova, 2026. "Paying a High Premium: How Climate Change Is Crippling Homeowner's Insurance and Fueling a Housing Crisis," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_1115, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1115
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • G52 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Insurance
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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