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Letter to the editor

Florida in for more bad news

Increased global warming will create bigger hurricanes and higher sea levels, a report says.

By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
Published November 3, 2007

Coastal states like Florida are facing more and bigger hurricanes, rising sea levels and an increasingly nervous property insurance industry that is rapidly retreating inland.

And that's the good news. Further global warming will only make those conditions worse in the coming years, according to a report released Friday.

The report by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit advocacy group in New York once known as the Environmental Defense Fund, includes previously unpublished data from an ongoing analysis by Robert W. Klein, director of Georgia State University's Center for Risk Management and Insurance Research.

Klein outlined what most Floridians already know - homeowners insurance premiums nationwide are going up (an average of 46.3 percent over the past five years), and Florida leads the pack with the biggest increase - an average of 77.3 percent.

The report also noted that State Farm, Nationwide and other carriers have cut back on new polices in Florida, while Allstate has stopped altogether.

"The punch line is that climate change is making this stuff worse," said Melissa Carey, the group's climate change policy specialist. "It's been very frustrating to hear public officials on both sides of the aisle talk about the insurance crisis and never talk about the underlying factor of climate change.

"We'll be facing the same problems or worse 20 years from now. And in a state like Florida, it's going to be worse. We can't put Florida up on stilts."

What can be done, Carey said, is place a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and create a federal backstop for hurricane insurance.

"When you talk about climate change as a pocketbook issue," Carey said, "then it becomes very real to a lot of people."

To see the report, log on to www.environmentaldefense.org/hurricanes.

FAST FACTS:

Report findings
~ 95 percent of Floridians live within 35 miles of a coast, and 79 percent of insured property in the state sits along the coast.
~ From 2001-06 average homeowner policies in Florida increased by 77.3 percent, more than any other state.
~ From 2002-06, Miami Beach homeowners reported cumulative increases of 500 percent.
~ The eight hurricanes of 2004-05 caused more than $35-billion in insured losses.
~ In 1992, Hurricane Andrew pushed 12 insurance companies out of business and caused others to stop writing policies in the state.

Source: Environmental Defense

[Last modified November 2, 2007, 23:20:28]