Excellent, thank you. The 2025 gang can delete all the federal databases and satellite monitoring feeds they want, but you can be sure the insurance industry will stay completely on top of when, how, and where mother nature is going to mess with their profits, and the insurers will pack their bags accordingly.
I'm a climate change squatter in upstate New York, on 33 acres that are as resilient against climate change as I could find (uphill, wetland-adjacent, and up the jet stream from the Adirondacks). When I hear a right-winger up here say they "don't believe in climate change," I immediately respond with "yes you do." After that wonderful expression of disorientation has crossed their face, I add, "If you didn't believe in climate change, you wouldn't be here. You and your friends would be buying up distressed properties on the coasts of the Carolinas or Florida, or on the California/Nevada border. If you didn't believe in climate change, you'd put your money where your mouth is. But you're not."
Someone should make a Zillow sort of website specifically for properties that are, according to climate experts, likely to catastrophically suffer from climate change in the near future. Then a financial institution that, for a fee, would let numerous climate change deniers pool their money to make these purchases in cash, so mortgage lenders wouldn't demand insurance. Advertise solely on Truth Social. Stress how these "so-called experts" don't know anything. Get some climate afflicted victims out of harm's way, inflict some financial pain on some of those responsible, and all while moving money to a better home.
And the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to make climate change worse. Oil and coal is the way to go to these morons, along with a deep hatred of all green energy, or anything whatsoever that does not make immediate profit for the fossil fuel industries. Taking the Protection out of the EPA, replacing it with Destruction. News is out today of an environmental "kill shot" that "would erase current limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other sources and could prevent future administrations from proposing rules to tackle climate change." (source: AP) Seems a tad shortsighted, no?
Hamilton! The insurers remain insanely profitable. They just had their most profitable year. Private equity is gobbling up insurers for their "cheap capital" aka people's premiums to make lots of money investing. Statewide, based on NAIC filings, Florida homeowners' insurers haven't had a negative year since 2005! 2005! Your overarching analysis is right on but I think you are overlooking what's happening right now year-to-year and how much profit is being extracted and how long the state has been derisking these assets for insurers and investors and that, while the problem is growing, these are deep deep markets. Just a thought!
Yes, I'm not trying to portray insurance companies as unprofitable (or even honest!), I'm just saying that the underlying problem is climate change and even if you regulated the profit margin of the insurance industry down to 1% you would still be fucked unless you deal with the underlying problem.
I’m an environmental lawyer who’s worked on climate issues for decades, and I can say you are totally right. I’ve also worked on the National Flood Insurance Program, which might be a (terrible) example for where this ends up. The flooded homeowners ran to their state governments, who said they couldn’t afford the cost of repeatedly rebuilding in flood-prone areas. So the homeowners got Congress to create an insurance program. But the premiums the program could charge were always insufficient to cover the costs. So Congress has to steer general funds to the insurance program. And once enough homeowners benefit from the program, you cannot get the political system to fix it. So there’s never a day of reckoning. Just a waste of federal funds. Forever.
I don't know if thank you is the correct response to a nightmarish dystopian prophesy, but thank you? Genuine question from a reader in everyone's favorite state to hate/national bellwether: Obviously coastal Florida is rightly implicated in the pieces you linked to, but isn't climate crisis kind of an everywhere problem? What's to stop Sandy 2.0 from taking down NYC? Is insurance not an issue in vulnerable blue-state areas, too? Including inland areas?
I'm thinking of John Seabrook's recent New Yorker piece that talks about the catastrophic flooding in VT, for example. Seabrook says VT's Washington County "ranked first nationally in disaster declarations between 2011 and 2024," which surprised me because I'm so used to seeing the conversation framed around FL. It looks like that stat was taken from this report that lists the states with the highest national disaster declarations and FL's not in the top ten states (CA is #1): chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://rebuildbydesign.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Atlas-of-Accountability-Fact-Sheet.pdf.
Not trying to play devil's advocate (DeSatan can burn) or argue we don't have a problem here (it's obvious we do). I'm just trying to get a more nuanced picture of what's going on.
Yes-- coastal real estate exposed to storms and, out west, real estate exposed to wildfires are the most obvious examples of places with serious real estate value exposed to climate risk but you are correct that this is a nationwide issue. See Asheville for instance.
There are resources for those interested in learning about places in the US which are more climate resilient. All coastal regions, not just FL, are at risk due to rising sea levels and increased storm intensity. Everywhere west of the 100th meridian, which in the US is significantly hotter and drier, is at risk due to drought, decreasing reliable fresh water sources, crop failures, wildfires, and deadly heat waves. There is a reason 80% of the US population lives east of the 100th meridian. I expect that percentage to rise in the coming years. It would be nice if the coming diaspora of people from high risk to lower risk areas could happen as part of a humane, democratically managed process. But reality suggests this will not be the case.
Hamilton is sounding a warning we all should heed. Instead of being forced to fight over scraps, or stand by helplessly while our homes, communities, livelihoods, and families are destroyed in wave after wave of climate induced catastrophes, we must inform ourselves. We must take the necessary steps to protect what we value. Politicians are not leaders. They just follow the voting herd. Voters have as much power as they are willing to aggregate. Informed, proactive, organized voters can accomplish much more than any single politician, or their oligarchs. Waiting for property values to collapse, while businesses and employers flee high risk areas, is probably unwise. Forewarned is forearmed.
You spin a perfectly plausible scenario. It has been written that we are currently well into the Anthropocene extinction. William Gibson called it the jackpot, an appellation he attributed to the kleptocrats left alive after a combination of cataclysms that resulted in the dying off of 80% of humanity. "Something to think about as you enjoy the sunshine this summer!"
You could make a parallel argument that those with health insurance will see their rates rise, a back-door subsidy to health care for all the people losing Medicaid and a gutted Affordable Care Act. My good neighbor State Farm (Corporate HQ 3 miles away), just announced a 27% rate increase in Illinois, claiming it has nothing to do with other states, but somehow, I'm not quite convinced by the corporate PR...
"The future is impossible to predict in its particulars. But if you understand the nature of a problem, and the nature of the economic incentive structure relating to the problem, and the nature of the political system and the personalities of the decision-makers surrounding the problem, it is very possible to make medium-term predictions about the general nature of what is going to happen with high confidence."
You've basically restated the idea underpinning the Harry Sheldon-invented discipline known as psychohistory (from Isaac Asimov's novel Foundation.)
Read the reports that Swiss Re, the big reinsurer, puts out and you'll see that they're thinking the same thing. They have like a whole blog thing about it now.
This is one of the smartest things I've seen. It's so well thought out -- and so terrifying. For the last couple of years I’ve been the only Substack writer looking for what we-the-people can do to end-run around governments that aren’t going to save us, where we would look to the causal level of what's going on and not stay on the surface trying to move deck chairs.
The deepest dive to make is to what humanity thinks of itself, which at this point is as economic creatures rather than caring ones. We need to go from an economic bottom line to a humanitarian one, and, if that were the case, to give us our best chance for humanity to remain an industrialized civilization in this late-stage capitalistic state of affairs, we'd be a cooperative species, thinking together about what to do.
Reading what you’ve written, it seems hopeless. The forces are what they are. But see my Substack this week for my best thinking, that’s looking for the best from other people:
Excellent, thank you. The 2025 gang can delete all the federal databases and satellite monitoring feeds they want, but you can be sure the insurance industry will stay completely on top of when, how, and where mother nature is going to mess with their profits, and the insurers will pack their bags accordingly.
Insurance companies and bookies are best for reality checks. Amortization tables provide super solid data points
1. I work in finance, and unfortunately, you are exactly right. I think this message needs to be spread far and wide.
2. Thank you for your relentless pace of writing extremely good articles. I really appreciate every one of them.
I'm a climate change squatter in upstate New York, on 33 acres that are as resilient against climate change as I could find (uphill, wetland-adjacent, and up the jet stream from the Adirondacks). When I hear a right-winger up here say they "don't believe in climate change," I immediately respond with "yes you do." After that wonderful expression of disorientation has crossed their face, I add, "If you didn't believe in climate change, you wouldn't be here. You and your friends would be buying up distressed properties on the coasts of the Carolinas or Florida, or on the California/Nevada border. If you didn't believe in climate change, you'd put your money where your mouth is. But you're not."
Someone should make a Zillow sort of website specifically for properties that are, according to climate experts, likely to catastrophically suffer from climate change in the near future. Then a financial institution that, for a fee, would let numerous climate change deniers pool their money to make these purchases in cash, so mortgage lenders wouldn't demand insurance. Advertise solely on Truth Social. Stress how these "so-called experts" don't know anything. Get some climate afflicted victims out of harm's way, inflict some financial pain on some of those responsible, and all while moving money to a better home.
I really appreciate your writing. These are things I would never know if it wasn't for your consistent spot on observations
It is truly scary. Thank You.
And the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to make climate change worse. Oil and coal is the way to go to these morons, along with a deep hatred of all green energy, or anything whatsoever that does not make immediate profit for the fossil fuel industries. Taking the Protection out of the EPA, replacing it with Destruction. News is out today of an environmental "kill shot" that "would erase current limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other sources and could prevent future administrations from proposing rules to tackle climate change." (source: AP) Seems a tad shortsighted, no?
Trenchant, digestible, excellent review of the situation.
That "Theo's Restaurant" in the picture looks like a pretty nice waterfront place to eat. Do you know if they serve breakfast?
Hamilton! The insurers remain insanely profitable. They just had their most profitable year. Private equity is gobbling up insurers for their "cheap capital" aka people's premiums to make lots of money investing. Statewide, based on NAIC filings, Florida homeowners' insurers haven't had a negative year since 2005! 2005! Your overarching analysis is right on but I think you are overlooking what's happening right now year-to-year and how much profit is being extracted and how long the state has been derisking these assets for insurers and investors and that, while the problem is growing, these are deep deep markets. Just a thought!
Yes, I'm not trying to portray insurance companies as unprofitable (or even honest!), I'm just saying that the underlying problem is climate change and even if you regulated the profit margin of the insurance industry down to 1% you would still be fucked unless you deal with the underlying problem.
I’m an environmental lawyer who’s worked on climate issues for decades, and I can say you are totally right. I’ve also worked on the National Flood Insurance Program, which might be a (terrible) example for where this ends up. The flooded homeowners ran to their state governments, who said they couldn’t afford the cost of repeatedly rebuilding in flood-prone areas. So the homeowners got Congress to create an insurance program. But the premiums the program could charge were always insufficient to cover the costs. So Congress has to steer general funds to the insurance program. And once enough homeowners benefit from the program, you cannot get the political system to fix it. So there’s never a day of reckoning. Just a waste of federal funds. Forever.
I don't know if thank you is the correct response to a nightmarish dystopian prophesy, but thank you? Genuine question from a reader in everyone's favorite state to hate/national bellwether: Obviously coastal Florida is rightly implicated in the pieces you linked to, but isn't climate crisis kind of an everywhere problem? What's to stop Sandy 2.0 from taking down NYC? Is insurance not an issue in vulnerable blue-state areas, too? Including inland areas?
I'm thinking of John Seabrook's recent New Yorker piece that talks about the catastrophic flooding in VT, for example. Seabrook says VT's Washington County "ranked first nationally in disaster declarations between 2011 and 2024," which surprised me because I'm so used to seeing the conversation framed around FL. It looks like that stat was taken from this report that lists the states with the highest national disaster declarations and FL's not in the top ten states (CA is #1): chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://rebuildbydesign.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Atlas-of-Accountability-Fact-Sheet.pdf.
Not trying to play devil's advocate (DeSatan can burn) or argue we don't have a problem here (it's obvious we do). I'm just trying to get a more nuanced picture of what's going on.
Yes-- coastal real estate exposed to storms and, out west, real estate exposed to wildfires are the most obvious examples of places with serious real estate value exposed to climate risk but you are correct that this is a nationwide issue. See Asheville for instance.
https://mappingresilience.onebillionresilient.org/
There are resources for those interested in learning about places in the US which are more climate resilient. All coastal regions, not just FL, are at risk due to rising sea levels and increased storm intensity. Everywhere west of the 100th meridian, which in the US is significantly hotter and drier, is at risk due to drought, decreasing reliable fresh water sources, crop failures, wildfires, and deadly heat waves. There is a reason 80% of the US population lives east of the 100th meridian. I expect that percentage to rise in the coming years. It would be nice if the coming diaspora of people from high risk to lower risk areas could happen as part of a humane, democratically managed process. But reality suggests this will not be the case.
Hamilton is sounding a warning we all should heed. Instead of being forced to fight over scraps, or stand by helplessly while our homes, communities, livelihoods, and families are destroyed in wave after wave of climate induced catastrophes, we must inform ourselves. We must take the necessary steps to protect what we value. Politicians are not leaders. They just follow the voting herd. Voters have as much power as they are willing to aggregate. Informed, proactive, organized voters can accomplish much more than any single politician, or their oligarchs. Waiting for property values to collapse, while businesses and employers flee high risk areas, is probably unwise. Forewarned is forearmed.
Thank you for the resource!
https://map.climatevulnerabilityindex.org/map/cvi_overall/usa?mapBoundaries=Tract&mapFilter=0&reportBoundaries=Tract&geoContext=State
Here's another one that is a little easier to navigate.
I especially 'love' the name Demotech. Guess who gets blamed when they don't pay out.
You spin a perfectly plausible scenario. It has been written that we are currently well into the Anthropocene extinction. William Gibson called it the jackpot, an appellation he attributed to the kleptocrats left alive after a combination of cataclysms that resulted in the dying off of 80% of humanity. "Something to think about as you enjoy the sunshine this summer!"
You could make a parallel argument that those with health insurance will see their rates rise, a back-door subsidy to health care for all the people losing Medicaid and a gutted Affordable Care Act. My good neighbor State Farm (Corporate HQ 3 miles away), just announced a 27% rate increase in Illinois, claiming it has nothing to do with other states, but somehow, I'm not quite convinced by the corporate PR...
"The future is impossible to predict in its particulars. But if you understand the nature of a problem, and the nature of the economic incentive structure relating to the problem, and the nature of the political system and the personalities of the decision-makers surrounding the problem, it is very possible to make medium-term predictions about the general nature of what is going to happen with high confidence."
You've basically restated the idea underpinning the Harry Sheldon-invented discipline known as psychohistory (from Isaac Asimov's novel Foundation.)
Read the reports that Swiss Re, the big reinsurer, puts out and you'll see that they're thinking the same thing. They have like a whole blog thing about it now.
This is one of the smartest things I've seen. It's so well thought out -- and so terrifying. For the last couple of years I’ve been the only Substack writer looking for what we-the-people can do to end-run around governments that aren’t going to save us, where we would look to the causal level of what's going on and not stay on the surface trying to move deck chairs.
The deepest dive to make is to what humanity thinks of itself, which at this point is as economic creatures rather than caring ones. We need to go from an economic bottom line to a humanitarian one, and, if that were the case, to give us our best chance for humanity to remain an industrialized civilization in this late-stage capitalistic state of affairs, we'd be a cooperative species, thinking together about what to do.
Reading what you’ve written, it seems hopeless. The forces are what they are. But see my Substack this week for my best thinking, that’s looking for the best from other people:
Something is stirring in the land
Could an upswing be underway?
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/something-is-stirring-in-the-land