Take climate change into consideration

Hurricane season spells fear to most Floridians, especially myself, a native Floridian who's been through dozens including Buzz-saw Andrew. Andrew decimated the homeowners insurance industry: 63,900 destroyed houses, 124,000 damaged and $57 billion in property damage. Anyone in Florida who has opened a home insurance bill in the last few years knows premiums have been skyrocketing. New estimates from a data analysis company shows they've actually been rising faster than in any other state — a lot faster.

The numbers show just how massive the impact has been on the wallets of Florida consumers, with home insurance costs up about 57% since 2015, according to LexisNexis Risk Solutions. That's nearly triple the national average (21%) and far outpaces Nebraska, the state with the second biggest average home insurance hike (43%).

Climate change may take some of the blame: Warming oceans and an altered atmosphere are making hurricanes more likely to rapidly intensify and may make stronger storms more frequent. A recent run of hard-hitting hurricanes has pushed several Florida insurers into insolvency. But there are also other, more mundane causes, according to insurance experts. Inflation has driven up the cost of materials and labor to repair or rebuild a house. Rising interest rates have raised the cost of borrowing for insurance and reinsurance companies. Developers keep building pricey homes in vulnerable floodplains and along eroding coasts. And new residents keep flooding into them, concentrating the state's insurance risk.

All these factors have created an insurance crisis that's driving up the cost of living for homeowners and renters from the Keys to the Panhandle. As a 37-year employee of AT&T, I've seen the carnage and damage, as I volunteered to restore service in affected areas of the state. People going without phones or electricity for months in some cases. Hurricanes used to mainly develop off the coast of Africa and head west, impacting the Florida Keys and east coast; now they're developing in the west and targeting the west coast. Owning property in Fort Myers beach, the area still hasn't recovered. Many people decided not to rebuild. Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott voted against last year's bipartisan infrastructure law, which devotes some $50 billion to help states better prepare for events like Ian. At the same time, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has blocked the state's pension fund from taking climate change into account when making investment decisions.

Jack Burt

Inverness