How the changing climate is driving up your insurance bill - FOX13 Memphis
How the changing climate is driving up your insurance bill | News | fox13memphis.com
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - In a single moment everything can change. A severe storm can ruin your home, your business and everything you've built for your family.
Rebuilding is expensive and time-consuming and insurance companies are passing those costs on to home owners.
Extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires tornadoes and floods are happening more often and climate change is a major factor. Even if these natural disasters happen in other parts of the country, they can drive up the price where you live.
Covington, Tennessee, Wynne, Arkansas and Rolling Fork, Mississippi are a a few communities in the Mid-South rebuilding after damaging tornadoes ripped them apart. Already in May, tornadoes in Middle Tennessee and Oklahoma have claimed lives. Research is ongoing into whether climate change is causing more tornadoes, but it's already been proven that the storms are getting more severe.
"And so more tornadoes out of individual events mean, okay, there is a greater chance that you actually might be impacted or, at the very least, more homes, more businesses are impacted, which has a ripple effect into the insurance industry," said Dr. Dorian Burnette, a meteorologist, climatologist and storm chaser who works at the University of Memphis.
TONIGHT AT 9:45 P.M. ON FOX13 NEWS, find out how much these severe storms around the country are driving up home owner insurance in the Mid-South and what you can do to keep your family out of danger and keep more money in your pockets.
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”