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.
Unexpected disasters are causing damage in unlikely places, forcing decision-makers in the public and private sectors to prepare for the most common disasters in their region as well as the rare, once-in-a-hundred-year ones. But strategies exist to help decision-makers prepare for the unexpected.
California has high standards for wildfire, but even with policy changes, adoption is slow. The LA Fires will likely drive up rent prices, fueling displacement in the region. The fires are straining an already imbalanced CA insurance market.
Part II of our Wildfires Briefing explores four categories of opportunity for the private sector: 1) Implementing modern building materials and codes; 2) Technologies for better fire management; 3) New insurance models; and 4) Private financing for forest management.
Climate change and federal policies are making wildfires more frequent and intense. Migration patterns are increasing the exposure of assets to wildfire threats. And assets that are more vulnerable to wildfires translate into higher costs.
