Insurance markets in the warmer future
By 
Tonight in (genuinely) lovely Athens, GA, Erik and I had a very affable Lyft driver who was mildly climate skeptical (in the “sure the Earth is warming but it’s just a natural process” variety.) One way you can quickly learn the material reality is to try to buy insurance in a state increasingly beset by climate-related disasters, and it’s not just Florida either:
Brian Harper probably has the least desirable occupation in California. He sells insurance.
Harper’s job used to be to find good policies on home and auto plans for his clients. Now he breaks bad news: Rates are going up, coverage has been cut, and policies have been canceled.
“It’s soul-crushingly tough,” said Harper, who owns an insurance agency in the mountain town of Coarsegold, near Yosemite National Park. “There are no good days.”
Like Harper, many agents are on the sharp end of a national crisis in home and auto insurance. Things are especially bad in California. Insurers have fled the state, pummeled by losses from drought-spurred wildfires and, this month, storm-triggered flooding.
It never used to be this bad. Harper, an 18-year insurance veteran who sells on behalf of Farmers Insurance, said his job offered the satisfaction of helping people. “A family would walk in needing coverage, you’d write them a policy, and they’d walk out happy,” he said.
“Those days just don’t happen anymore,” he added. “You never get to deliver good news—every rate change is an increase, every coverage change is a restriction. My staff and I, we’ve had to build up some scar tissue.”
The problems stretch beyond California and Florida, said Charles Symington, chief executive of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America. “What makes this difficult market so unique is its severity and its national scope…our agents are seeing it everywhere,” he said.
Double-digit rate increases for home insurance were approved in 25 states last year, with effective increases of more than 20% in Texas, Arizona and Utah, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
It’s not just some isolated jurisdictions — insurance markets are about to get a lot worse for everybody.