Insurance is a huge topic in its role in collapse. Talking about homeowners insurance is a good place to start. It's been on mind, too, and plays a role in every aspect of society. Farm insurance is also on my mind. It's tough to contemplate losing our homes in an uninsured event, but farmers unable to afford insurance has obvious and dire implications for everyone. Perhaps you would like to investigate that? Thanks for a good article on an important subject.
I love insurance. It doesn't care about the nut jobs running the country or making decisions about things. It's just cold hard analysis of the facts. It tells the story. Very simply.
This is a growing problem, and not just in Florida. Homeowners across the country are seeing insurance disappear or become impossible to afford.
The bigger issue is how reactive everything still is. We wait for the disaster, then scramble to rebuild. There’s got to be a shift toward predict and prevent instead of react and replace.
There’s no magic fix. But I think the answer starts with coming together — not just as consumers, but as homeowners with shared interests. We need better transparency, smarter warning systems, local mutual-risk options, and real pressure on policymakers to prioritize protection over profit.
Great article Matt. You allude to "sacrifice zones", areas that we will have to abandon when it becomes impossible to live there anymore (whether due to lack of insurance or water, costs of food, physical climate change etc). These are growing in number and size internationally. The US is no exception. When we talk about refugees and immigrants we usually assume that they come from overseas, but a growing problem will be domestic refugees in the coming years. Nomad Century is a good book looking at this issue globally - see https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/444202/nomad-century-by-vince-gaia/9780141997681
Insurance will reward the wise home owner/builder and punish the spread of morons into high risk areas. Prices in NZ recently went down for 70% of owners at a large insurance company. Though some went up and a small amount were told they were no longer insurable.
Sadly, fire and sea level rise are going to become unmanageable. The money doesn’t exist to deal with coastal issues. Insurance land value loss, right downs and well when your house vanishes, because the land simply isn’t there any more, well, when it’s gone it’s gone.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the linkage between insurance and home mortgages. In effect, if a property cannot be insured it becomes unsaleable. So it can be viewed abstractly as part of a large phenomenon of depreciation of assets, but it is also a tangible social issue complicating the already difficult housing situation in many part of the US. And this is not solely an American problem.
I asked the question - why is a 30 year mortgage legal in Florida? Where I talk about just that. If you are selling a house in Florida today, especially in the lower half of Florida, the buyer of that house should expect to lose all of their investment. They would be trying to sell that house in 2055. Good luck.
Yes - a complex subject. My compatriot, co-founder of JustCollapse.org, assoc. prof. Dr. Kate Booth, is the globally recognised expert on the subject having founded the field of critical insurance and critical collapse, studies. Her book on the subject will be available in print early 2026. :)
Which scenario in Smith’s book is behind the picture? NOAA predicts about one foot of sea level rise by 2050 (https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/us-coastline-to-see-up-to-foot-of-sea-level-rise-by-2050). The picture seems to have the south shore of Lake Okeechobee under water, but cities there like Belle Glade have an elevation of 16’. Is this a collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet scenario?
Major collapse begins with financial collapse, and the insurance crisis will be a fundamental part of it - not least when the US eventually stops patrolling the oceans, making freighters uninsurable.
Insurance is a huge topic in its role in collapse. Talking about homeowners insurance is a good place to start. It's been on mind, too, and plays a role in every aspect of society. Farm insurance is also on my mind. It's tough to contemplate losing our homes in an uninsured event, but farmers unable to afford insurance has obvious and dire implications for everyone. Perhaps you would like to investigate that? Thanks for a good article on an important subject.
I love insurance. It doesn't care about the nut jobs running the country or making decisions about things. It's just cold hard analysis of the facts. It tells the story. Very simply.
This is a growing problem, and not just in Florida. Homeowners across the country are seeing insurance disappear or become impossible to afford.
The bigger issue is how reactive everything still is. We wait for the disaster, then scramble to rebuild. There’s got to be a shift toward predict and prevent instead of react and replace.
There’s no magic fix. But I think the answer starts with coming together — not just as consumers, but as homeowners with shared interests. We need better transparency, smarter warning systems, local mutual-risk options, and real pressure on policymakers to prioritize protection over profit.
Great article Matt. You allude to "sacrifice zones", areas that we will have to abandon when it becomes impossible to live there anymore (whether due to lack of insurance or water, costs of food, physical climate change etc). These are growing in number and size internationally. The US is no exception. When we talk about refugees and immigrants we usually assume that they come from overseas, but a growing problem will be domestic refugees in the coming years. Nomad Century is a good book looking at this issue globally - see https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/444202/nomad-century-by-vince-gaia/9780141997681
Insurance will reward the wise home owner/builder and punish the spread of morons into high risk areas. Prices in NZ recently went down for 70% of owners at a large insurance company. Though some went up and a small amount were told they were no longer insurable.
Sadly, fire and sea level rise are going to become unmanageable. The money doesn’t exist to deal with coastal issues. Insurance land value loss, right downs and well when your house vanishes, because the land simply isn’t there any more, well, when it’s gone it’s gone.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the linkage between insurance and home mortgages. In effect, if a property cannot be insured it becomes unsaleable. So it can be viewed abstractly as part of a large phenomenon of depreciation of assets, but it is also a tangible social issue complicating the already difficult housing situation in many part of the US. And this is not solely an American problem.
John,
Last fall after the hurricane across the Southeast I wrote this: https://degrowthistheanswer.substack.com/p/florida?utm_source=publication-search
I asked the question - why is a 30 year mortgage legal in Florida? Where I talk about just that. If you are selling a house in Florida today, especially in the lower half of Florida, the buyer of that house should expect to lose all of their investment. They would be trying to sell that house in 2055. Good luck.
Thanks Matt, I’d not seen that. Ireland had similar problems, though in very select areas at the time.
Yes - a complex subject. My compatriot, co-founder of JustCollapse.org, assoc. prof. Dr. Kate Booth, is the globally recognised expert on the subject having founded the field of critical insurance and critical collapse, studies. Her book on the subject will be available in print early 2026. :)
Which scenario in Smith’s book is behind the picture? NOAA predicts about one foot of sea level rise by 2050 (https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/us-coastline-to-see-up-to-foot-of-sea-level-rise-by-2050). The picture seems to have the south shore of Lake Okeechobee under water, but cities there like Belle Glade have an elevation of 16’. Is this a collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet scenario?
Major collapse begins with financial collapse, and the insurance crisis will be a fundamental part of it - not least when the US eventually stops patrolling the oceans, making freighters uninsurable.