Image by Kseniya Lapteva.
Florida is the nation’s barometer of climate change. It’s on the cutting-edge of climate at latitude 24.5°N-to-31°N in-line with Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and Mexico. Significantly, it aligns with Tropic of Cancer at 23.5°N, the hottest latitude on Earth.
It’s there that climate change dances its special rhythm in a precursor of what’s in store for the States. It shows up there first.
Climate Change Undercuts Homeownership
Homeowners in Florida can attest to the costliness of living along the world-famous Tropic of Cancer via home insurance premiums, directly impacted by a rapidly changing climate that’s literally changing homeowner’s lives. Will other high-risk regions of America follow suit and how soon?
Climate change’s economic impact has become enemy number one for homeownership, especially in high-risk states. Sadly, America’s emphasis on fossil fuels that emit CO2 into the atmosphere, thereby causing global warming, instead of adopting clean renewables, is a horrible, horrible mistake. States like Florida are already (today) paying the price.
Throughout America real estate values increase with increasing householder growth. But according to a recent Bloomberg article: “More Americans Are Moving Away from Flood Risk Than Towards It” d/d June 24, 2026:
Americans are leaving flood-prone communities at an accelerating pace, with high-flood-risk US counties losing a net 63,357 domestic residents from mid-2024 to mid-2025.
Counties with relatively low flood risk gained nearly 70,000 residents on net the largest increase since 2018, as climate and weather risk becomes part of the affordability equation for many homeowners.
Affordability and climate risk are becoming more tightly linked, with rising insurance premiums and maintenance costs increasing the cost or owning a home in flood-prone areas, according to Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather.
According to floodsmart.gov. a total of 125,090 flood claims were paid 2020-2025 in Florida. And Louisiana, with the second most claims in America, paid 20,774 flood claims over the same time. (source: The States Where Flood Risk is Rising Fastest and How Many Homes Aren’t Insured for It, Kansas City Star, July 7, 2026)
It cannot be emphasized enough that America’s policy of burning fossil fuels rather than renewables is a bad idea that threatens Florida.
Global Warming Impact Brings Odious New Legislation to Florida
The State of Florida had to change its laws to keep homeowners’ insurance viable. Unfortunately, homeowners are paying thru the nose in more ways than one, to wit: Florida’s Fix for Insurance Crisis Puts More Risk on Homeowners, Bloomberg, July 29, 2026, as follows: “Worried about who would be left to insure Floridians, the legislature passed laws in 2023 that changed the way property insurance works there. Three years since the laws went into effect, some homeowners, lawyer and insurance insiders say the reforms created a new set of predicaments… making it more onerous for homeowners to use the courts to challenge denied claims or low payouts. That has emboldened insurers to limit payouts on claims, according to critics as well as current and former employees at three different private homeowner insurance companies within the state… Raymond Powers, a trial attorney in Florida who represents property owners, is seeing more claim denials and lower payouts since the new laws went into effect,” Ibid.
Why do homeowners always end up holding the bag?
Evidently, according to Florida’s insurance commissioner, the market for home insurance was near collapse and something had to be done. Ipso facto, change the laws to accommodate insurers at the expense of consumers. That’s nothing new in today’s world of bare-knuckle winner-take-all capitalism. Interestingly, it begs the question of perceived democratic socialism (gaining traction in America) handling an insurance dilemma pitting homeowners against powerful corporate interests. What would Mayor Mamdani do?
Costly Global Warming
There is a direct correlation between weirdo planetary warming, like what’s happening now, due to burning fossil fuels and costly property damage, which clobbers Florida time and again. For example, the Florida inflation-adjusted five-year average costs of severe storms such as flooding and tropical cyclones is more than $36 billion. Ten years ago, it was under $1 billion. That’s growth in the wrong direction. It’s enough to ‘choke a horse’ in the wrong direction thanks to increased burning of fossil fuels.
As a result, Florida has the highest home insurance premiums in the country, averaging $8,292 versus a national average of $2,948. Global warming sneakily tags insurance premiums for all it can get, some Floridians pay much more.
Consumers Pay the Price
According to Bloomberg research, several states are now struggling with the dilemma of whiplash climate change, e.g., Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, and California. “It’s a strain that’s spreading,” Carolyn Kousky, Coalition for an Insurable Future. States are all considering changing the rules to keep people in place.
Meanwhile, Miami has overtaken NYC as the most expensive city, in part, because of higher insurance costs. This despite claims by Florida’s governor: “Premiums are lowering because we’ve enacted real reforms.” (Bloomberg) The Florida governor even cited ‘premium reductions’ by three insurers.
Au contraire, according to Insurify, who partners with 120 major insurers, on average, premiums in Florida have gone up 14.3% since the reforms mentioned by the governor have gone into effect, and they continue to rise, expecting another rise in 2026.
Meanwhile, consumers find it’s like pulling teeth to get anything approaching a reasonable, fair payout for damage. According to a former employee at Universal, Florida’s largest private insurer, there was a “push to offer lower payments after the laws were passed,” and legal changes making it much more challenging for the Average Joe to file a suit. A former lawyer for the company said managers authorized settlements way below what they internally knew was owed a customer, “like $5000 or $10,000 to settle a claim worth tens-of-thousands.” (Bloomberg)
Meanwhile, according to Weiss Ratings, the nation’s only independent rating agency covering insurance companies, based on an analysis of official NAIC data, homeowners in Florida and California were dropped by their insurance companies more often than in any other state. Non-renewals were the worst in Florida. This is the penalty of anthropogenic global warming.
Global Warming Challenges Homeownership
“The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) cautions that climate change is creating “an unfortunate reality that more and more borrowers will be faced with renewal concerns or difficulty obtaining affordable initial insurance policies when they buy a home.” (A Premium Crisis: Climate Change Threatens Homeowner’s Insurance, Housing, and Financial Stability, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, April 15, 2026)
An increasing number of homes may ultimately “become uninsurable due to the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related events and the associated changes in insurance policies’ structure, pricing, and availability,” Ibid.
Solutions Always Seem Fleeting
Global warming is starting to dance to its own pace ferociously throughout the planet. This is obvious on every nightly news channel in the world. It is indisputably obvious. And most guest commentators that seek-out answers talk about mitigation, or some fixit or other, but look at what we’ve got on our hands, a mess. That’s reality.
Indeed, it’s fair to point fingers when human failure is egregiously overtly unacceptable, for example, nations of the world have failed to heed scientist’s warnings for over 30 years. Commitments by 195 nations to cut emissions at Paris ’15 ten years ago are dead in the water. And there is no magical technological fixit or organized global effort to deter global warming, none. Nations of the world have failed to act, failing their citizens while recklessly goosing up global heat.
A group of scientists is suggesting a universal global effort to seriously analyze and take action as soon as humanly possible, Managing Climate Overshoot: A Risk-based Strategy for Climate Stabilization. Here’s the link.
