$120 Billion in Insurance Losses in 2022

Has your personal property insurance rate gone up in the past year? What might cause those rates to balloon? I’ll tell you — property losses that are occurring in other areas of the nation that are experiencing disasters.

Here’s a tally of losses for 2022, above the $95 billion average: “Hurricanes and floods bring $120 billion in insurance losses in 2022.”

As noted in the linked article above, “‘Weather shocks are on the rise,’ Ernst Rauch, chief climate scientist at Munich Re, told Reuters. ‘We can’t directly attribute any single severe weather event to climate change. But climate change has made weather extremes more likely.’”

Too bad that California, now experiencing the biggest disaster of the year so far (two weeks in), and then the Alabama tornadoes that hit recently are two more indicators of what is going on. As one meteorologist said on NPR just today, a tornado in Alabama in January is not that unusual. However, typically a tornado might stay on the ground for 5 miles. This one caused a trail of damage 50 miles long.

The long-term outlook is more disasters, larger disasters, disasters that are of longer duration, and they will cost more!

Note, I have already heard a story where developers are snatching up properties that were decimated by Hurricane Ian along the Florida West Coast. What will be built are more expensive houses and multifamily buildings that will be impacted by a future hurricane and cost more to fix or replace. We are exceptional alright!