Using relatively new data, two groups have made interactive maps that show how serious the homeowners insurance crisis is in many parts of our region, and across the country.
In recent months, the U.S. Senate Budget Committee and the Federal Insurance Office have each released detailed data on insurance premiums, non-renewals and other key metrics. The advocacy groups Public Citizen and The Revolving Door Project brought that data to life with interactive maps.
What they show in the West – down to the ZIP code level for the FIO data – is that insurance companies are raising premiums and increasingly not renewing policies, leaving homeowners scrambling to find new coverage.
To cite one example, Idaho’s Blaine County – home to world-famous Sun Valley – saw its non-renewal rate more than quintuple over five years to 2.8% in 2023. On the cost side, the Colorado ZIP code that includes Steamboat Springs saw average annual premiums jump nearly $1,000 between 2018 and 2022.
You can check out the situation in your community here.
“This is a vulnerability that's been growing over a long period of time. In part, it grew in the dark because we often didn't have full data,” said Public Citizen’s Carly Fabian. “Now that we have a little more data, we've turned the light on and seen that things are moving much more quickly than most people thought.”
Revolving Door’s Kenny Stancil argues that these trends could have dire consequences.
“Once areas become or are deemed uninsurable, then they become unmortgageable,” he said. And that means that there are places in the country where real estate is currently maybe overvalued and we could see a massive crash in property values once mortgages are no longer available.”
Both Stancil and Fabian hope that regular citizens use the maps to better understand the growing problem, and that policymakers use them to develop solutions. But Fabian noted that ultimately climate change is driving the crisis.
“If we're not addressing the root cause of climate change, we're ultimately just kicking the can down the road,” Fabian said. “The longer we wait, the harder it will be to address these issues, and the more expensive our insurance will become, and the harder the choices we’ll have to make about where to live and when to move will become.”
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
