Climate change scaring insurance companies
By Tim McDonnell, Mother Jones
In the months after Hurricane Sandy, insurance companies spooked by rising seas dropped coastal policies in droves.
That could become an increasingly common story, according to the largest-ever survey of how insurance companies are dealing with climate change, released Wednesday. Global warming is increasing the risk of damage to lives and property from natural disasters beyond what many insurers are willing to shoulder. And most insurance companies aren’t taking adequate steps to change that trend, the survey found. That’s a problem even if you don’t live by the coast: When private insurers back out, the government is left to pick up much of the damage costs; already, the federal flood insurance program is one of the nation’s largest fiscal liabilities.
Ceres, an environmental nonprofit, evaluated the climate risk management policies of 330 large insurance companies operating in the United States. The results are worrying. Only nine companies, 3 percent of the total, earned the highest ranking.
The insurers that scored highly on the survey (including several of the world’s biggest, such as Munich Re, Swiss Re, and Prudential) were those that have adopted a broad range of climate-conscious products and services, such as rate pricing plans that account for potential climate impacts like storms and fires. Some insurers are also investing in high-end climate modeling software to better understand where their risks really are. Others offer environmentally friendly plans like mileage-based car insurance and encourage their customers to rebuild damaged homes using green technologies. And some insurance companies are making significant efforts to monitor and reduce their own carbon footprint.
However, the report finds that one major way insurance companies are adjusting to climate change is by not insuring properties that are threatened by it, said Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, a lead author of the report.
On the topic of climate change? Okay, before anyone jumps my case, I know weather and climate are related , but are two different things.
Get ready, a wind advisory along with a chance of rain is on the way, so make sure your stuff outside is secure and stuff you don’t want to get wet… don’t get wet or blown away!!
Take care and keep the firewood dry! OLS
The real problem is people building and living in violent weather areas. It isn’t the nonsense about rising seas or global warming.
New Orleans built below sea level, brilliant.
And then the government offers below cost insurance policies to enable people to build in flood zones.
Legal-
New Orleans was established hundreds of years ago.
Long before science or anyone else was able to gauge or predict the consequences of living on the edge of the ocean.
I am sure you would be the first to change your tune and whine if the applicable governments said one day, “we can no longer accept any responsibility for your safety, and are no longer maintaining the levees.”
My guess is you would be one of the first to scream “who is going to pay for my house if I have to abandon it?”
What do you think about Stockton CA? Levees there look down on hundreds or perhaps thousands of rooftops.
DIRT is all that is keeping the water from wiping many out.
People have, for far too long, assumed they could control Nature with will, a lot of money and a few billions of tons of earth. In the long run, it is not going to be supportable in low coastal areas or in many inland drainage basins like the great central valley in California.
There is physical, measurable, evidence that the sea level has been up to three hundred feet higher than it is now. It could happen again and probably will if the trend being studied now continues.
Legal-
You Make Too Much Common Sense.
Shortly you will be contacted by the all powerful, Global Warming Zombies to be “inturd” in The Re-Education Camps formerly called Universities, to correct your thought processing.
All others verring from the U.N. approved “Global Warming Scam” ~~~ Be Warned ~~ YOU ARE NEXT!
Is calling someone who denies the dangers of ignoring climate change a misinformed dolt “name calling?”? Or is it an accurate description of a willfully ignorant teabagger?
Insurance companies are in the business of managing risk. Their visual depends on it. Of course they want to write as many policies as possible but will operate to avoid catastrophic losses. You can be sure that if they’re curtailing business, there’s a good reason for it. They know Nature bats last and that there will be only losers.
Marelene, which re-education camp did you attend and what was your major?
Speaker Boehner knows best ! Sorta kinda like the Sun and Sun lamps do not cause Skin Cancer.
Next he unequivocally stated “He is not a scientist” So why bother to pay attention to facts that accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.
( Thank you John Mercer)
CP, you should have eaten more fish as your brain developed. What was your major in college?
Kevin, how did large trees get to the bottom of Fallen Leaf Lake? Let’s see your brilliance in explaining away the centuries long drought that allowed enough moisture for tree growth but not enough to create a lake.
You trying to use the #1 myth from ‘skeptics’.
Read this:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
Before this goes further, demonstrate a basic understanding of climate: define climate using a number and a unit of time.
I don’t have time for uninformed people.
CP try to answer the questions regarding yourself that you asked of others. Again, why are large trees at the bottom of Fallen Leaf Lake? Maybe Kevin can answer.