This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. The rising cost of homeowner’s insurance is now one of the most prominent symptoms of climate change in the United States. Major carriers like State Farm and Allstate have pulled back from offering fire insurance in California, dropping thousands of homeowners from their books, and dozens of small insurance companies have collapsed or fled from Florida and Louisiana following recent large hurricanes.
Global reinsurance firms such as Swiss Re take in premium revenue from all over the globe, insuring earthquakes in Japan as well as hurricanes in Florida, so they aren’t vulnerable to collapse during local disasters, even major ones. But the increasing trend of “attritional” losses from repeated convective storms does threaten to cut into their profit margins.