I’m beginning to think the greater the graphics and maps, the more likely the story has some degree of bamboozlery involved. If you’re interested in looking at the maps by county, I think they’re behind a paywall. However I can get the NYT digitally from one of our county libraries, so you probably can.
The story starts with an interview with a sympathetic individual from Silver City NM.
Mr. Zimmel, who lives in the increasingly fire-prone hills outside Silver City, N.M., had done everything right. He trimmed the trees away from his house, and covered his yard in gravel to stop flames rushing in from the forest near his property. In case that buffer zone failed, he sheathed his house in fire-resistant stucco, and topped it with a noncombustible steel roof.
None of it mattered. His insurance company, Homesite Insurance, dumped him. “Property is located in a brushfire or wildfire area that no longer meets Homesite’s minimum standard for wildfire risk,” the letter read. (Homesite did not respond to a request for comment.)
Mr. Zimmel has company. Since 2018, more than 1.9 million home insurance contracts nationwide have been dropped — “nonrenewed,” in the parlance of the industry. In more than 200 counties, the nonrenewal rate has tripled or more, according to the findings of a congressional investigation released Wednesday.
As a warming planet delivers more wildfires, hurricanes and other threats, America’s once reliably boring home insurance market has become the place where climate shocks collide with everyday life.
Now if you follow climate, you might think that climate is only a part of wildfires (and suppression could improve with new technologies and fuel treatments that we taxpayers are paying for- otherwise why are we paying for them? ) Data suggests there are not more hurricanes, and that hail has not been associated with climate change.
For example, a doubling of hail reports across the United States since the 1980s is likely a product of more people, greater interest in storms, and more ways to file reports, according to a 2021 overview paper on hailstorms and climate change published in Nature Reviews.
Anyway, there are a few interviews with various individuals in Silver City; I think we have a TSW-ite who lives there so perhaps we can learn more from him.
My favorite part was the map, though, that shows non-renewal rates. If non-renewal patterns were based on climate change factors, we might expect to see areas of similar threats (say next to each other) have similar non-renewal rates. Hmm. but that’s not exactly the pattern that emerges. The source of the data is from the U.S. Senate Budget Committee.
For example, I live in El Paso County, Colorado. We have an interesting mix of forest, both national and private, and grasslands. Our data show that 1 in 113 policies were not renewed in 2023, a 40% decrease from 2018. We have both forest fires and grass fires. Let’s go to the counties affected by the Marshall Fire, Jefferson and Boulder County. Jeffco had a 38.6% decrease, and Boulder a 6.1% decrease. Meanwhile, San Miguel County had a 391.9% increase. Clearly, something is going on here beyond climate change. But what exactly?
Similarly, Teton County is unique on the map, and more generally in Wyoming due to having many super-rich people. Note that it is next to other counties that don’t have high non-renewal rates. Hypothesis: they can afford it. However, that is definitely not true for San Miguel and Huerfano counties in Colorado. There goes another hypothesis. I think to really understand what’s going on, we’d have to take a more site specific approach, say compare the non-renewals (individual homes) in say San Miguel and neighboring counties in Colorado, or in Kansas, neighboring Gray and Ford Counties- since 2018, Gray had a 152.5% increase in non-renewals while Ford had a 27.5% decrease.
As we’ve seen in past posts, the map shows that California is unique, and that there are other issues than climate change at play.
Curiosity meets Climate Narrative at the NYT… and I guess curiosity loses. But to be fair, curiosity can be expensive and takes time.
There is also a nice video of dead trees from the air here near Pinos Altos, NM. Hopefully you can see that without the paywall.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/18/climate/insurance-nonrenewal-rates-policies-state-map.html?unlocked_article_code=1.i04.dsBU.NGDBUdczzPbC&smid=url-share
Here is the fully unlocked article
Thanks Redhawk, that’s a great contribution!
We still have ties in Jeffco, and I can tell ya insurance is a big deal in the Conifer/Evergreen area! However, let a developer go nuts and that’s what ya get. We looked at nice homes, built in the canyons – top of ridges, with only one way in and one way out. It was so…….beautiful, you could touch the tree crowns from the deck…. We did NOT jump at those deals. And now, the cows have come home; insurance (to keep the “farm” motif) is as scarce as hens teeth!!!
Evergreen Meadows will have a catastrophic fire someday, not a question of if….
So you’re not there now? I have friends working tirelessly on what seems to me a cluster of overlapping requirements and authorities and granting programs to get anything done. https://www.rotarywildfireready.com/
No, not there now; did live there, worked some fuels abatement and still attached to the news group of the area. The major issue is not what needs to be done but the degree of treatment and buy-in from the residents. However, some of the problem areas will just have to be “isolated” (that old pesky fuels term that drives fire folks nuts) because of extremely heavy fuels, steep ground and climax species!
If any industry in the US is data driven it’s the insurance industry. Their shareholders want the companies to get it right re: profit & loss.
I first ran into it when I was graduating from forestry school; the life insurance sales reps came around to meet with us to make a pitch. ‘What’s your major?” When I said forestry they were like “Oh, oh I need to go to the high risk tables for premiums.” In the early 70’s the accident data for logging & lumbering was pretty bad.
If nice graphics seem to correlate w/ bamboozling in some folk’s minds then so be it.
Based on my experience as an insurance customer for 60 years I’d say I believe the industry data. And the graphics help tell an important story.
OW, my problem is not with the data, it is with the story. What story do you think the data are telling?
You guys dont know? AI algorithms have been deployed across the insurance industry (programmed to generate profits and deny claims just as found in the healthcare industry, car insurance industry etc..), this along with surveillance drones being flown around by insurance companies looking at properties from above. Sounds like a dystopian story right? Nope its all true, though your not gonna find any resemblance of this truth in corporate media like the NYT. Go ahead, look into it, its true.
Dont worry things will get worse, much worse, as AI drones with facial recognition cams, infrared, and incendiary devices, patrol your friendly neighborhood encampments 24X7 to make sure you peasants stay in line. Get out the sunglasses cause the future is bright!
Silver City presents a unique blend of fuels, weather, and topography that consistently makes the area among the top 10 most at-risk communities for catastrophic wildfire in New Mexico and as my hometown, this is obviously close to home. Although I no longer live in Silver City (now Colorado), the risk of catastrophic wildfire within the community is something I frequently think about not only from the perspective of being an independent forester/ forest management business owner but also someone who was once part of Whiskey Creek VFD and having several good friends that are part of numerous VFD across Grant County. Pinos Altos and the Little Walnut Area (where my childhood home is) has significant risk due to road infrastructure and lack of vegetation management across the board. Although the Grant County CWPP has some recommendations and some work has been done in key areas such as near the Little Walnut Picnic Ground, it is my believe that the CWPP needs to have more of a focus on vegetation management and mitigating risk rather than putting the emphasis on incident response that it currently does. Individuals like Mr. Zimmel that have implemented fire wise measures for their property are ahead of the curve but unfortunately wildfire mitigation work, especially on private land, needs to dramatically increase in pace and scale.
However, the challenge like many things in the forestry line of work comes down to money and folks like Mr. Zimmel are generally the exception, not the rule given that the majority of Grant County residents live near the poverty line including my own family growing up. Places like Pinos Altos or far North Swan Street (Mount Vesuvius Dr area for example) have higher real estate values that tend to attract more wealthy individuals that can generally afford wildfire mitigation work but as I stated before, it is not being done at the pace and scale needed to make a significant impact to decrease wildfire risk that would convince insurance companies that risk is reduced. To make things more complicated, the topography isn’t always the most favorable in these areas so per acre treatment costs for thinning/ wildfire mitigation is going to be expensive, especially considering that chipping is likely the most effective means of slash disposal given the special considerations that come along with the complexity of WUI areas. Another challenge that I see is the lack of a trained workforce that is capable of implementing thinning and hazardous fuels reduction work to the degree needed to make a significant impact.
Although thinning/ hazardous fuels reduction/ wildfire mitigation is something I know well as it was the services I initially founded my business on in 2019 here in Southern Colorado, NM State Forestry Division is decades behind the Colorado State Forest Service regarding state funded thinning/ fuels reduction projects in the WUI therefore the mechanisms to fund the needed work is severely lacking. Maybe a free market approach absent of government bureaucracy may hold some promise in getting acres treated and defensible space established but given my local knowledge, I know that the wildfire risk situation around Silver City/ Grant County is still complex puzzle and how work is funded is only a portion of it. However, there are plenty of other pieces to figure out to include how insurance companies evaluate the effectiveness of work. Although generally insurance companies have some willingness to recognize fire mitigation/ thinning/ hazardous fuels reduction efforts as a way to reduce risk, some insurance companies are very selective on how much premiums are reduced, especially if vegetation management serves as a stand-alone means of mitigating risk. This of course makes the assumption that insurance companies are still willing to insure and does not address the problem of insurance companies consistently dropping coverage for homeowners.
As someone also pointed out, homeowner buy-in is very important and in the case of Silver City/ Grant County, serves as another challenge. The most at-risk areas like Pinos Altos have been largely gentrified by people we as natives often refer to as “rich hippies” that are typically disinclined to cut many trees. Obviously there are exceptions like Mr. Zimmel who I highly applaud for completing wildfire mitigation work but there is so much work that needs to be done to make a major difference including contiguous fuels treatments that incorporate multiple properties. This is without considering what is needed on adjacent BLM (Cleveland Mine area for example) or Gila National Forest. Maybe the problem of insurance carries dropping homeowners may change some opinions about cutting trees but the challenge of convincing insurance companies that vegetation management by means of professional forestry expertise is a viable means to reduce wildfire risk if done at the proper pace and scale is still going to be a challenge. Although I believe that vegetation management generally gives the most bang for the buck when it comes to mitigating wildfire risk, I’m sure there are plenty of insurance agents that have the all or nothing mindset and want structure modification and vegetation management that meet rigorous standards beyond the budget of most homeowners before they budge.
In New Mexico and other mountain states utilities, insurers, county commissions, lenders and developers have allowed the building of tinder boxes packed so closely together that homeowners can see into each others bathrooms.
I’m a bit late to this story, but I want to make the suggestion that models of risk of loss don’t necessarily do a good job mapping ecological/climatological processes – they aren’t meant to.
Example with n=1: I live in the Oregon coast rainforest. Average 100 inches of rain per year and I have 6 perennial streams on my 5-acre property. There are springs everywhere and the fuel profile is not favorable for burning. Yet my insurance was non-renewed due to wildfire risk. Why? The only reason I can surmise is that I am one mile outside of the 10-mile service radius of the nearest fire district. The insurance company’s modeling found that to be a key predictor of loss risk and they acted on it, regardless of actual wildfire hazard.
While insurance companies certainly endeavor to make data-driven decisions, I don’t see any reason to expect that their actions would mechanistically reflect climate risks. They reflect instead the structure of society, which is shaped in part by climate.
Hm.. one person’s “data-driven” may well be “sounds vaguely plausible” and the COI with “let’s not look too closely if we can charge more.” FWIW, I think state insurance regulators need to hire folks to get inside some of this modeling.
The insurance company’s model based on service radius makes good sense. The vast preponderance of casualty losses in the home insurance industry are due to in-home sources of combustion, e.g., wood stoves, fireplaces, smoking, cooking, and the like. Thus having a fire department nearby to extinguish interior ignitions is an important factor in reducing losses. Wildland fire is a drop in the home casualty loss bucket.