The home insurance market is crumbling in New Orleans, leaving Alfredo Herrera with few options for coverage — and skyrocketing insurance premiums.
Herrera, 35, works in finance for a local bank. He bought his 900-square-foot home in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood in 2020 for $270,000, and lives there with his partner.
In 2022, he paid $1,600 a year for home insurance. But last July, his insurer canceled his coverage, saying it was leaving Louisiana.
In the past, acquiring or keeping homeowners’ insurance didn’t present much of a problem.
But as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, insurers — especially those in areas most impacted by floods and fires — are raising their premiums, or pulling out altogether, impacting the affordability and availability of home and fire insurance.
Insurance rates are the true Canary of Collapse. If the money men have calculated that certain areas are going to quickly become unlivable, then people should listen.
Of course it’s not trivial to just pack up your life and move but it’s about to become super necessary, unfortunately.
Yeah but just picking up your life and leaving isn’t always a possibility simply because you have so much investment already where you’re at. I mean how the hell do you get any of the money that you have invested in the home… it’s uninsurable who do you sell it to.?
Herrera shopped around for a new plan, but he struggled to find a policy. Louisiana Citizens, the insurer of last resort for property owners in the state, was out of the question. It would have cost more than $7,000 annually. Herrera eventually found a policy with a small company in the state that charged him $4,930 annually — a 208% increase from what he paid in 2022.
There were at least 2 options $5000–$7000. Sell to someone at a discount with the understanding that buyer is willing and able to bear at least $5000 in annual insurance costs. Do this before its actually uninsurable.
Eventually someone is left holding the bag on any house really. Unless the property increases in value past the value of the house, then it can be torn down and a new house built while keeping the price comparable to other nearby homes.
Yes but in this context it about the scope of the situation. You are not talking about just one person left holding the bag. We are talking about entire towns soon maybe states. At what point do we actually step in as a country . you have huge swaths of people that are not going to be capable of financially moving on because they have sunk all of their everything into that ground and you’re telling them they have to basically abandon it. That will not go well.