Last night we were enjoying the beautiful weather here in Spartanburg, SC at our local community gathering spot / coffee shop / bar / outdoor space and had a conversation with a friend about her ongoing frustrations to get their home renovated after Helene last year due to insurance struggles and delays.
Having lived in the Carolinas for most of my life, I’ve heard countless stories of insurance frustrations, debacles, and failures following a hurricane. That’s only escalating, as we saw here in Western North and South Carolina after Hurricane Helene hit this area a year ago (and the two properties across the street from our home remain uninhabited (by humans… the birds and squirrels, and deer seem to be enjoying!), with trees on their roofs).
Fascinating read here on the insurance industry and climate considerations…
How McKinsey and Climate Change Wrecked Insurance | The New Republic:
Bahan’s insurance nightmare was one of many related to me during a visit to southwestern Florida, where residents have endured three major hurricanes—Ian, Helene, and Milton—in as many years. Each tale turns on its own particular outrages and ironies, but common themes aren’t hard to spot: eye-watering rate hikes, dropped policies, shady adjusters, paltry payouts, and claims denied for dubious reasons. State Farm, for instance, closed 46 percent of 2023 claims after issuing no payment whatsoever, and it was hardly an outlier. Meanwhile, even as they were doing everything possible to limit payouts, insurance companies were socking away massive profits, according to a secret state report that became public just a few weeks before my trip. While Florida’s situation is extreme, it represents an early warning sign in a troubled property insurance system that is, as U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse put it in a 2024 committee hearing, “swirling the drain.”