What’s the context?
Climate risk disclosure data is educating – and dividing – home-owning Americans
- Oregon redraws wildfire maps after public backlash
- New FEMA flood maps affect thousands in Florida
- Data is double-edged sword for some homeowners
RICHMOND, Virginia – Dulce Suarez-Resnick, an insurance agent in Florida, hears plenty from people complaining how flood maps can trigger new insurance costs for them yet leave their neighbours unscathed.
As climate risk data becomes ever more prevalent, U.S. homeowners now have new know-how to future-proof their main asset but may also end up paying more to guard against the possible fallout of a fast-changing climate.
“My client would argue with me that her neighbour across the street doesn’t have to carry flood insurance, and why does she have to carry it?” she said. “I said ‘because the map says so, and therefore … your bank says so.'”
Such is the double-edged sword many Americans now face: a glut of data is giving people greater insight into their individual risk – but it is information that has also triggered an intense backlash due to fears over the costs that may follow.
The state of Oregon is now redrawing wildfire hazard maps two years after abandoning a similar effort due to the fear and vitriol it stirred over home insurance rates – even though insurers had indicated they weren’t using the maps that way.
A new state law now formally bars insurers from using state maps as a basis for cancelling or increasing a premium for a homeowner insurance policy.
The goal of the new Oregon charts is to marry the best available data with the most accurate hazard calculations, said Andy McEvoy, a wildfire research scientist at Oregon State University who is helping design the maps.
“And because of how far the science has come, those are complicated,” he said.
“I’ll be the first to acknowledge that there are limitations on what data we have available across the state,” he noted.
“Nonetheless, limitations aside it is an objective process ….for deciding which communities, which properties, which regions are … our highest priority.”
A game of risk
Oregon last month released new draft wildfire hazard maps that streamlined the number of hazard categories and took into account a host of local variables such as how the presence of hay, pasturelands or irrigation may affect vulnerability.
Eventually, properties that are in both higher hazard regions and an area known as the “wildland-urban interface” – where structures abut undeveloped land – could be subject to new rules that help turn at-risk land into “defensible space”.
“The stated purpose of the map is to educate Oregon residents about the level of hazard where they live,” said Derek Gasperini, a spokesperson for the state Department of Forestry.
New state law prohibits insurers from using the maps as a basis to cancel or hike premiums on a homeowner insurance policy – though most insurers already have more detailed models for those kinds of decisions, Gasperini said.
The “home hardening” standards would only affect new builds, major additions or improvements such as a roof replacement, according to the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services.
Officials have held a run of public meetings, eager to communicate what the new maps do – and don’t – mean.
Properly mapping and communicating hazard levels is essential given the “new fire environment” the state faces, McEvoy said.
The risk of damaging wildfires and flooding has worsened as climate change helps drive ever more intense U.S. storms.
“In my conversations with fire professionals, they are facing different kinds of fires and more fires than they have before and there’s no future in which that doesn’t continue for some while, right?” McEvoy said. “We have to adapt.”
‘All this data’
Across the country in Florida, the weather risks are different but disquiet over the data tells a similar story.
New Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood zone maps that took effect in July mean an estimated 80,000+ properties in Broward County alone, just north of Miami, have a new designation – one that could carry new requirements and impact the cost of residents’ flood insurance.
So the accuracy of the FEMA maps is crucial.
Fully 78% of properties affected by Hurricane Debby, which swept parts of the Southeast in early August, fell outside FEMA special flood hazard areas, according to First Street Foundation, a climate risk mapping group.
That means $9.7 billion of an estimated $12.3 billion in damage occurred outside of the FEMA flood areas, First Street found.
FEMA said it uses a different method from First Street to analyse risk – and that its flood insurance rate maps (FIRMs) aren’t intended to predict where it will flood in the future.
“The FIRMs are snapshots in time of risk designed to show minimum standards for floodplain management and the highest risk areas for flood insurance,” Luis Rodriguez, Engineering and Modeling Division Director at FEMA, said in a statement to Context.
“Flooding events do not follow lines on a map. Where it can rain, it can flood.”
Preparedness is key and some states now impose tough, new homebuilding rules, for example requiring homes be built a certain height above the floodplain.
But some areas can be exempt, or construction companies claim they don’t have to follow them, Suarez-Resnick said.
“So there’s all this data, but no – there really isn’t all this data,” she said. “And that’s a problem.”
Plus those hardest hit are also frequently the ones who are least able to afford to make their home more resilient.
“If you’re a low-income family or you’re a senior citizen and you’re on a fixed income, you can’t spend … $7,000 or $8,000 for accordion shutters,” Suarez-Resnick said.
“It’s either pay (for) your medications or food or buy the protection, right?”
(Reporting by David Sherfinski; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths)
