Homeowners insurance is pricing people out in disaster-prone cities

Insurance as Market Signal

• Many commenters argue soaring premiums and insurer exits are exactly how markets should work: they signal that certain places are too risky to live or build in, and should shrink.
• Higher prices are seen as a corrective to decades of subsidized rebuilding in floodplains, hurricane zones, and wildfire areas.
• Some emphasize that in a rational system, expensive insurance should suppress land values in risky areas and deter new high-end construction there.

Personal Responsibility vs. Human Impact

• Strong strain of “you chose to live there, bear the cost,” especially for places like Florida where voters repeatedly opposed climate action and risk mitigation.
• Others push back that this ignores people with long-standing homes whose risk changed over time (e.g., new flood maps, shifting tornado patterns), and that wiping out 40–50% of their net worth is devastating.
• There is tension between dispassionate “market logic” and recognition that these are life savings, community ties, and support networks, not just financial assets.

Role of Government, Subsidies, and Relocation

• Broad criticism of federal programs (NFIP, FEMA) that repeatedly rebuild the same properties, effectively subsidizing risky coastal lifestyles for a minority at everyone else’s expense.
• Proposed fixes:
  • “Three strikes” (or even one-strike) rules where repeat-loss properties must be bought out, demolished, and rezoned (e.g., into parks).
  • Eminent-domain buyouts at partial value, turning unlivable areas into national parks or greenways, plus funded relocation assistance.
  • Stricter bans on rebuilding in known high-risk zones.
• Others doubt political will, expecting bailouts to continue, primarily to protect banks rather than homeowners.

Climate Change and Insurance Economics

• Many tie uninsurability to climate change making severe events more frequent and damaging, plus soaring rebuilding costs.
• Some note insurance as a “final arbiter”: companies don’t care about ideology, only data and losses.
• A minority stresses other drivers: regulation, litigation, fraud, inflation; they caution against attributing every rate spike solely to climate.

Land Use, Building Standards, and “Everywhere is a Disaster Zone”

• Suggestions to require much more resilient construction (concrete, stilts, elevated utilities) rather than banning habitation outright.
• Others argue that almost all regions now carry some labeled “disaster” risk, and premiums are rising broadly, not just in obviously extreme zones.