At Mary Mahoney’s Old French House in Biloxi, Mississippi, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), will join the Mississippi NAACP State Conference to host community leaders to highlight how more frequent extreme weather is increasing out-of-pocket insurance costs for families and making it harder to obtain coverage along the Gulf Coast.
In Mississippi, rising sea levels, intensifying storms, more extreme precipitation, and increasing flood risk are making it harder for residents to afford and obtain homeowners’ insurance. Mississippi Today recently reported that the echoes of Hurricane Katrina and heightened climate risks have caused insurance companies in the state to raise rates or pull out of the marketplace altogether.
Last Congress, the Senate Budget Committee under then-Chairman Whitehouse obtained national county-level non-renewal data and published a first-of-its kind public dataset and accompanying staff report exposing instability in insurance markets across the country. According to the data obtained by the Budget Committee, Mississippi ranks sixth in the nation for insurance non-renewals. Mississippi insurance premiums are the seventh highest in the nation, averaging nearly $5000.
Nationwide, a dual crisis in insurance affordability and availability threatens to destabilize the entire US economy. Without access to insurance, more Americans will be unable to secure a home mortgage, which risks undermining property values and cascading into a 2008-style economy-wide shock. Earlier this year, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified to Congress that it will soon become impossible to obtain insurance or a mortgage in certain coastal and fire-prone regions of the country, and research has estimated that extreme weather could erase $1.4 trillion in real estate value by 2055 due to insurance pressures and shifting consumer demand from the highest-risk places.
Ranking Member Whitehouse’s trip to Mississippi will be the latest in a series of visits to communities that are on the front lines of the insurance crisis. He has previously met with residents in North Carolina, Texas, and Florida.
Mary Mahoney’s Old French House
110 Rue Magnolia
Biloxi, MS 39530