Progressive posts best commercial auto underwriting performance in 2024  June 6th 2025

Climate change is raising costs for federal hurricane insurance for farmers

He hates to say it, but Ernest Fulford is hoping for a hurricane.

Storms tore through the Jefferson County grower’s 1,600 acres last fall, submerging thousands of pounds of freshly-dug peanuts in floodwaters and dropping fluffy white cotton bolls, weeks away from harvest, into the mud.

A crop insurance payout kept his Florida farm, a family legacy since the 1940’s, in business.

The Federal Crop Insurance Program, so far spared from the Trump Administration’s sweeping cuts, costs the government an average of $9 billion annually. Climate change could raise its price tag by up to a third by 2080, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. Despite the increasing investment, the program struggles to accommodate small farmers and those, including Fulford, hit by back-to-back storms.

That worries agricultural economist Anne Schechinger of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit in favor of crop insurance reform.

“The crop insurance program really is not helping farmers adapt to extreme weather from climate change,” she said, noting that the program relies on past crop and weather data instead of forward-looking climate models.

“The past 20 years, specifically in historical yields, is not the next 20 years for these farmers.”

IBHS honors resilient construction trailblazers

Yesterday, during the 10th Annual FORTIFIED Awards celebration, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) recognized 76 FORTIFIED service providers and non-profits taking the lead to better prepare their communities for severe weather. The awards honor organizations that have helped at least 100 customers earn a FORTIFIED Home™ designation and contributed to the record number issued in 2024.

FORTIFIED, a voluntary, beyond-code construction and re-roofing standard based on decades of IBHS research, strengthens areas of a home vulnerable to high winds and heavy rain. Lab studies and real-world events show FORTIFIED significantly reduces damage from hurricanes, tornadoes and other severe weather events. More than 75,000 homeowners have chosen to seek a FORTIFIED designation, with Alabama, North Carolina and Louisiana leading the way. The FORTIFIED program requires third-party verification that the standard has been met and can lead to insurance incentives or tax credits for homeowners.

"For a decade now, the FORTIFIED Awards have celebrated the individuals and companies who make resilient homes a reality," said IBHS President and CEO Roy Wright. "Every month, nearly two thousand homeowners work with dedicated service providers to make their homes stronger. As a result, communities are becoming more resilient and better prepared for the next storm."

FORTIFIED Volume Awards are earned by certified FORTIFIED roofing contractors, evaluators and professionals who have generated a minimum of 100 designations, with different award categories for progressively higher designation totals. This year's recipients include:

How Wildfires Are Torching The Home Insurance Industry

As wildfires surge across North America, insurers are pulling out of high-risk zones—leaving homeowners unprotected and exposing a deeper market crisis.

What happens when the models tell you the world is on fire, and the market listens?

In California’s most extreme wildfire zones, one in five homes has lost its insurance coverage since 2019 according to a Deep Sky Climate (my employer) wildfire research report. In some zip codes, premiums have skyrocketed over 40%. More than 150,000 households are now uninsured—not because they want to be, but because they’re uninsurable. And wildfire season has barely begun. Already more than 200 blazes rage across Canada, many are getting out of control. This isn’t just a climate story. It’s a markets story. A story of how the first real stress test of climate adaptation is happening—not in the halls of Congress or Parliament, but in your homeowner’s insurance renewal letter.

Home Insurance Is A Canary In The Climate Coal Mine

Insurers have one job: predict risk, price it, and spread it. And they’re good at it—until they’re not. When Los Angeles was engulfed in flames in January, insurance companies paid out more than $44 billion in claims. State Farm alone lost $7.6 billion. California’s state-subsidized FAIR plan took a $4.8 billion hit. That plan, by the way, is supposed to be the insurer of last resort. It’s now the only option left for hundreds of thousands of homeowners—and it's buckling.

Insurers saw it coming. Their catastrophe models—backed by more granular data and better forecasting than most public agencies can afford—warned them. They raised premiums, cut policies, and eventually fled entire markets. Since 2018, over 30,000 households in California’s high-risk fire zones had insurers that declined to renew their policies. Many never got a replacement.