Severe weather is driving up insurance rates in the United States, as the government phases out subsidized flood insurance for more than a million people living in flood zones.
The subsidies previously kept insurance at half the true commercial rate.
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“Some owners say they are angry because their houses near lakes, rivers, bays, and oceans were much more affordable with cheap rates that will now increase by as much as 25% each year until the premiums equal the full risk of settling down on property mapped as a flood zone,” the Post reports.
But “rising sea levels from climate change make coastal living even more dangerous, conservationists say. And the flood-insurance program that went into the red paying flood claims is deep in debt to a U.S. treasury funded by taxpayers.”
Ninety percent of natural disasters in the U.S. result from flooding, and the country’s National Flood Insurance Program is currently $24 billion in debt.
