Discussion · Senate
Sheldon Whitehouse Democrat
“I want the senator from Florida to work with me to address climate change. Climate change is hurting Florida the most. Rising seas and floods are causing insurance costs to soar, insurance companies to drop homeowners, and property values to fall. We need to act before Florida's housing and insurance markets collapse.”
“Mr. President, I am looking forward to the day when the Senator from Florida and I can be working together on these issues. As he knows very well, the University of Florida teaches the science of climate change. They have courses like Managing for a Changing Climate, Climate Change and Health, Climate Change Science and Solutions, Oceans and Global Climate Change, and many, many others. And it would be great if the science that the University of Florida teaches were also respected and reflected here on the Senate floor. It is more than just the University of Florida getting it right. This also lands in Florida in big ways because while wildfire may not be an issue in the good Senator’s State, flooding sure is. And that same cascade of risk that I talked about--starting with climate risk, hitting insurance security, moving into mortgage availability, clobbering property values, and then leading to recession--is well underway in Florida. Some have called it the great climate insurance collapse, and in that very difficult situation, Florida is first and worst into that danger. Climate risk first; insurance collapse, second; mortgage market suffering, third--all of those things are happening. Indeed, the chief economist from Freddie Mac, who is not a green guy--he is a finance and mortgage guy--warned there was a coastal property values crash coming. And as we go through those different stages from climate risk to insurance to mortgages to property values, unfortunately, Florida led the country last year in lost property values, which is at least, in part, I think a function of this risk and how it is hammering Florida homeowners. So you don’t really get away from this kind of a general risk. The insurance industry is not lying to everybody. They are not leaving customers who pay their premiums because they don’t like the customer. They are leaving customers who pay their premiums because the property is no longer insurable. And what we are seeing here across the United States is massive predictions in insurance rate increase, and Florida is really at the epicenter of that. This dark band is a 200-percent to 300-percent increase, and you see it all along the Florida coast. They are running at about $14,000 already in insurance costs for homes in Florida. Double that--not double it, add 200 percent and add 300 percent. That is actually tripling and quadrupling. You can see how that begins to hammer the home’s value. And here, you see a similar problem. This isn’t just a cost problem; this is a nonrenewal problem. It is going to end up costing you more money once you are nonrenewed--absolutely. But you also have to go through the immediate hassle and worry and anxiety of finding out how the heck you are going to insure your home once your insurance company has nonrenewed you. And you can see the focus of nonrenewal is along these coastal areas, very heavily in Florida, and then in some of these wildfire areas that we talked about out in California. So this continues to come at us. It is focused on certain geographic areas more than others, but no place more than Florida. So I look forward to working with the good Senator from Florida on finding solutions before the bottom falls out of his insurance, mortgage, and real estate markets. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.”
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Mr. President, I am looking forward to the day when the Senator from Florida and I can be working together on these issues. As he knows very well, the University of Florida teaches the science of climate change. They have courses like Managing for a Changing Climate, Climate Change and Health, Climate Change Science and Solutions, Oceans and Global Climate Change, and many, many others. And it would be great if the science that the University of Florida teaches were also respected and reflected here on the Senate floor. It is more than just the University of Florida getting it right. This also lands in Florida in big ways because while wildfire may not be an issue in the good Senator’s State, flooding sure is. And that same cascade of risk that I talked about--starting with climate risk, hitting insurance security, moving into mortgage availability, clobbering property values, and then leading to recession--is well underway in Florida. Some have called it the great climate insurance collapse, and in that very difficult situation, Florida is first and worst into that danger. Climate risk first; insurance collapse, second; mortgage market suffering, third--all of those things are happening. Indeed, the chief economist from Freddie Mac, who is not a green guy--he is a finance and mortgage guy--warned there was a coastal property values crash coming. And as we go through those different stages from climate risk to insurance to mortgages to property values, unfortunately, Florida led the country last year in lost property values, which is at least, in part, I think a function of this risk and how it is hammering Florida homeowners. So you don’t really get away from this kind of a general risk. The insurance industry is not lying to everybody. They are not leaving customers who pay their premiums because they don’t like the customer. They are leaving customers who pay their premiums because the property is no longer insurable. And what we are seeing here across the United States is massive predictions in insurance rate increase, and Florida is really at the epicenter of that. This dark band is a 200-percent to 300-percent increase, and you see it all along the Florida coast. They are running at about $14,000 already in insurance costs for homes in Florida. Double that--not double it, add 200 percent and add 300 percent. That is actually tripling and quadrupling. You can see how that begins to hammer the home’s value. And here, you see a similar problem. This isn’t just a cost problem; this is a nonrenewal problem. It is going to end up costing you more money once you are nonrenewed--absolutely. But you also have to go through the immediate hassle and worry and anxiety of finding out how the heck you are going to insure your home once your insurance company has nonrenewed you. And you can see the focus of nonrenewal is along these coastal areas, very heavily in Florida, and then in some of these wildfire areas that we talked about out in California. So this continues to come at us. It is focused on certain geographic areas more than others, but no place more than Florida. So I look forward to working with the good Senator from Florida on finding solutions before the bottom falls out of his insurance, mortgage, and real estate markets. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.