In the past two years, several major insurers, including Allstate and State Farm, have scaled back their home insurance business in California to avoid billions of dollars in damage from frequent wildfires.
They even largely temporarily suspended the sale of new policies.
Such is the case with homeowners like Beth Pratt, who continue to suffer the effects of fires near their home near Yosemite National Park.
To prevent this, Pratt made investments that sapped his savings, but he found it necessary because he believed it would provide him with a lifelong, flame-retardant home.
However, it would not surprise him to learn that his insurer, which has been in business for more than three decades, had decided not to renew his coverage.
Other owners are going through a similar situation, and it’s a problem not unique to California, a report by NPR (National Public Radio), the United States public broadcaster, warned.
Insurance companies in states like Colorado, Louisiana and Florida have also begun to scale back operations to protect themselves from mounting losses caused by the worst climate change-related disasters.
Earlier this month, the insurance division of the AAA announced that it would not be renewing some “high exposure” home insurance policies in Florida.
Meanwhile, Farmers Insurance reported that it will no longer be offering new contracts or renewing thousands of existing contracts in the southern state, in part due to the increase in hurricane losses.
The scientists warned that the effects of human-caused global warming on the timescale are irreversible and will worsen in the coming decades.
For the United States, experts predict sea level rise and stronger and more intense hurricanes in the not too distant future.
Southwest droughts and heat waves (periods of unusually hot weather lasting days or weeks) are in turn getting worse and the wildfire season is lengthening.
These conditions are not so alien because they are said to have started pricking her hairy ear.
For example, the country is currently showing changes in precipitation patterns, with an unequal effect between rain and snow.
In some places there is increased precipitation and flooding, in others there is extreme drought.
npg/dfm