"Home Insurance Rates in America Are Wildly Distorted. Here's Why."

"Climate change is driving rates higher, but not always in areas with the greatest risk."

"Enid, Okla., surrounded by farms about 90 minutes north of Oklahoma City, has an unwelcome distinction: Home insurance is more expensive, relative to home values, than almost anywhere else in the country.

Enid is hardly the American community that is most vulnerable to damaging weather. Yet as a share of home prices, insurance costs more in parts of Enid than in New Orleans, much of which is below sea level. More than in Paradise, Calif., which was destroyed by the Camp fire in 2018. More than in the Florida Keys, which are frequently wracked by hurricanes. Even more than in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where houses have begun slipping into the rising sea.

Enid's plight reveals an odd distortion in America's system of pricing home insurance. As a warming planet delivers increasingly damaging weather, the cost of home insurance has jumped drastically. But companies are charging some people, especially in the middle of the country and parts of the southeast, far more than other homeowners with similar levels of risk, an examination by The New York Times has shown."

Christopher Flavelle reports for the New York Times with data analysis and graphics by Mira Rojanasakul and photographs by Desiree Rios. July 8, 2024.

SEE ALSO:

"Find Out How Your Home Insurance Costs Compare in Our Interactive Map" (New York Times)