Home Insurance as You Know It Is Doomed. You’re Not Ready.
The remedies for homeowners so far aren’t preparing them for a financially stable existence as the risk of disaster increases.
Many homeowners are either not buying enough insurance or going without it.
Photographer: Giorgio Viera/AFP/Getty Images
Not long ago, it might have seemed a bit hysterical to suggest home insurance as we know it is doomed in a world of proliferating climate disasters. But when the chief executive of property and casualty reinsurance at Swiss Re AG — by some measures the world’s largest insurer of insurance companies — declares, “We are starting to reach the limits of traditional insurance,” the idea suddenly sounds less hyperbolic.
The question then becomes what a world without traditional home insurance will look like. In the US, at least, we’re failing to answer that question, for now leaving homeowners to bear the high and rising costs.