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With extreme weather comes extreme insurance prices for homeowners in disaster-prone states
Keeping homeowners insurance has become an increasingly tough task for millions of Americans, particularly those who live in the growing number of areas around the country prone to natural disasters.
Major insurance companies, including Allstate and State Farm, have stopped renewing policies in extreme-weather states like California and Florida, forcing residents there to find another insurer at a higher premium. AAA last year also decided not to renew some policies in Florida, a state that has seen an increase in powerful storms and coastal flooding.
Homeowners depend on their insurance policies to help with the steep price of paying for damages to their property in the event of accidents and bad weather. But insurers say they’re backing out of certain states because the chance of extreme damage from flood, hurricane or fires makes it too expensive to insure residents.
The remaining insurers, meanwhile, have opted to increase their rates. Travelers Insurance, for example, got the OK from California state regulators this week to raise homeowners’ rates an average 15.3%. The rate change will impact more than 320,000 Californians who have Travelers coverage now, according to documents the company filed with state regulators.
Travelers said in the state filing that it sought to raise rates in part because of “changing climate conditions.”
“The approved adjustments to our California homeowners insurance rates are a necessary step toward aligning pricing to the risks that our customers are facing,” the company told CBS MoneyWatch in an emailed statement.
Americans pay an average $2,153 a year, or $209 a month, for homeowners insurance, according to insurance industry data provider Quadrant Information Services. Florida’s average annual price leads the nation at $6,366 while Californians on average pay $1,452, according to Quadrant.
But a homeowner’s premium often increases after switching providers, Matthew Eby, the founder and CEO of First Street Foundation told CBS News. After a homeowner gets dropped from their previous insurer, they typically discover their previous policy did not cover wildfire or flood damage, Eby added.
“They go to find a new policy and find out that they’ve not been paying the right price,” he said. “The new price that is commensurate with risk can be 2, 3 or even 4 times higher than what they’ve been paying previously.”
To be sure, Californians and Floridians aren’t the only ones facing homeowners insurance woes. A January survey from Deloitte found that homeowners in 19 other states — including Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas — are seeing “shrinking coverage options and skyrocketing costs of their residential insurance policies.”
Not all insurers are upping rates or leaving states, the Deloitte survey found. Some providers offer homeowners cheaper prices if they take steps to protect their home from disasters.
“Some private insurance carriers in Florida, for example, are offering discounts to policyholders that fortify their homes against hurricane-force winds by strengthening and securing roofs and shutters and reinforcing garage doors,” the company said.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
