As climate-driven hazards accelerate, a dangerous structural misalignment has emerged: What building codes deem legally permissible to construct is increasingly at odds with what catastrophic risk models deem financially viable to insure.
As long as building codes lag behind climate realities, private insurance markets will continue to dictate local safety standards by default. Resiliency Codes offer a clear, actionable strategy to change this dynamic.
A recent analysis of the private market from Insurance for Good found that premium discounts for home hardening vary immensely, and often aren’t tied to the actual potential impact on losses.
The California FAIR plan is proposing a huge rate hike, alongside incentives to reduce wildfire risk. The success of the effort hinges on cultivating a robust, affordable industry around fire-resilient construction.
Last week, New York City experienced another round of flash flooding thanks to a violent downpour, highlighting a thorny question: When do you harden infrastructure against stormwater, and when do you work with it?
An adaptation-minded property insurance system means safer, healthier, more resilient communities and economies that can both prepare for and recover from climate disasters in an affordable, sustainable, equitable way.
The Epicenter editors recently interviewed Daniel Zarrilli, former Chief Resilience Officer for New York City and current Chief Climate & Sustainability Officer at Columbia University, about his work during the post-Hurricane Sandy recovery effort.
From stormwater systems to flood mitigation projects, we must redefine community-level investments in resilience not as a municipal cost, but rather as a direct investment in preserving property values and stabilizing the private cost of homeownership.
In a world of more frequent climate stressors and disasters, parametric insurance is a fast, nimble way to compensate communities for losses. Its growing popularity in the disaster space (from earthquakes to hurricanes) makes it a necessary tool to help communities bounce back.
The Dixon Trail community in California could signal a way forward for stakeholders grappling with the heightened risk of building, owning, and insuring homes in the fire-prone West.
