Traditional Home Insurance Is Collapsing. Here’s What Could Fill the Gap
This article examines the growing instability of the traditional home insurance market in the face of increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters. It highlights how river communities struggle to manage infrastructure damage while waiting for slow-moving federal relief funds.
Why it matters
As climate change increases the frequency of extreme weather, the collapse of insurance markets threatens the economic viability of entire regions and municipal infrastructure.
High water along the Mississippi River in Saint Mary, Missouri, during the historic 2019 floods. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story In 2019, when the worst flooding in recorded history spread across the entire Mississippi River basin, Colin Wellenkamp’s phone rang for weeks. Wellenkamp runs a nonprofit called the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, which coordinates between mayors’ offices in more than 100 river communities from northern Minnesota to southern Louisiana. As he describes it, his headquarters served as “one big virtual situation room” for relief agencies and municipalities up and down the central US.
The article focuses on reporting the logistical and economic challenges of disaster management without taking a partisan stance on policy solutions.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in