Our uninsurable future? A follow-up.
EU Insurance watchdog: “I see risks going up and more people not being able to insure their homes.”
As a follow-up on my post on the 28th January, I am sharing a report from the Financial Times today, 3rd February, 2025.
Martin Arnold posted an interview with Petra Hielkema, chair of the European Insurance and Occuptional Pensions Authority who told the FT that
Governments and banks will struggle to cope with the soaring costs of natural catastrophes such as floods and wildfires, the EU’s top insurance regulator has warned. More households will be unable to insure their homes and the mounting losses from natural disasters could destabilise banks, Petra Hielkema, chair of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, told the Financial Times.
“I think it is the biggest risk facing society, frankly,” Hielkema said.
“There are a lot of reasons why it could have a financial stability impact — first a lot of property losses need to be paid for and that becomes a problem — also it is a larger problem if people cannot get insurance for their houses and they can’t build.
“The speed at which damages are happening and the frequency and the impact is on such a rise that it really becomes a concern as to how we can cover that,” said Hielkema, adding:“Member states — they can’t cope with this.” “It is starting to become an agenda item for bankers as they have property on the balance sheet and property can be hit,” she added, echoing a warning from global regulators at the Financial Stability Board last month.
The taxpayer is being called upon to share the risk.
Hielkema was pushing the EU to fund a public-private partnership that provides reinsurance for natural catastrophe risks to lower the cost and increase the avaiability of insurance cover in the region.
And I don't know if "tax payers" can be called on to share the risk. Especially in the United States, where individual states are becoming the insurers of last resort, state governments are faced with the same fiscal realities as insurers. This isn't something you can MMT out of either, not when the expenditure is economically insolvent, not when extreme weather is tearing apart existing productive capacity.
The most difficult question to ask is if the rate of natural disaster is financially or economically solvent. That's a very complicated question to answer. It depends on a lot of factors like land use profiles. With the scientific realization that natural habitats are responsible for 30% more carbon processing than had previously been thought of, their importance to regional climate and weather has been underrated (read ignored).
In the 70s, land use was understood to be the second leg of climate change. It is an artifact of the confrontation between CO2, climate modelers, environmentalists, and the oil industry that that land use has fallen off the table. Politicians won't talk down development projects..
I think only RockStröm regularly speaks on the topic of land use.
The world's biomes have been torn apart, and everywhere this is evident from the plumbing insect and wildlife populations to the inability the growing in ability of natural habitat to recycle nutrients, sequester carbon and water.
Thanks for this concise but powerful post, Ann! I recall being asked to speak a decade ago to a small international seminar in BC. I spoke on the climate crisis from a community economic development - solidarity economy perspective, particularly because of a book I co-wrote with Pat Conaty, whom you have met. (The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady State Economy) An Australian insurance group financed the whole thing. This was 15 years ago or so. It is pretty terrifying to reflect on the implications of non-insurability. What other ways might we imagine protecting each other, or in our societies, if there are any: this is a question I have no idea about.