EDITORIAL: Bad climate for insurance [The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.]

Jun. 3—If you live in California and need a good neighbor, State Farm won't be there.

Citing "rapidly growing catastrophe exposure," the state's largest property insurer announced this week that, while it will maintain existing policies, it will not accept new coverage applications.

Like other insurers, State Farm has incurred substantial losses due to massive wildfires in California, where 25,000 homes have been consumed by those fires over the past five years. Those wildfires are the result of record droughts that scientists attribute to atmospheric warming.

Insurers' fundamental business is assessing risk based on known facts, whereas many politicians' fundamental business is pressing their own ideology regardless of the known risks.

So it's hardly surprising that insurers' coverage decisions in many states contradict those governments' policies regarding the impact of climate change.

Say what you want about insurance companies, but they're not lying when they turn down new premiums, increase existing policy costs based on risk, or abandon a market.

California isn't alone. Most major insurers have abandoned the flood insurance market in Florida. Flood insurance rates in eastern Kentucky have quadrupled. Louisiana has offered millions of dollars to insurers to resume coverage in that flood- and hurricane-ravaged state.

The federal and state governments need to recognize the reality of climate change unfolding before their eyes. Rather than paying insurers to cover inevitable losses, they should accelerate the transition to renewable fuels, bar construction in fire zones and flood plains, and adopt building codes to ensure that buildings can withstand nature's increasing wrath.

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