(The Center Square) – Climate change is impacting rising insurance rates and access to mortgages, says two members of Congress from North Carolina and Rhode Island.
“Climate change is now hitting family pocketbooks and in a big way,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
Whitehouse and Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., say the dominos fall by way of storms, insurance and property values.
“Climate change isn’t just about melting icebergs,” Ross said amid hosting Whitehouse and stakeholders from industry and environmental groups in Raleigh. “It’s also about higher costs for homeowners insurance. Renters and homeowners from Rhode Island to North Carolina and beyond know this.”
In October, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission Science Panel prepared the 2024 Sea Level Rise Science Update for the state Department of Environmental Quality. This analysis predicts a 1-foot sea level rise in the next 25 years.
Threats include flood frequency; rising groundwater tables; saltwater intrusion; and threats to infrastructure and ecosystems. North Carolina Sea Grant reports only 15% of saltmarshes have kept pace with sea level rise in the last 30 years.
Coastal counties Carteret and Brunswick averaged about 16% increases in 2025 for homeowners insurance, with another 15.9% projected next year. That’s far lower than the 99.4% requested of the North Carolina Rate Bureau. More inland, Duplin and Lenoir counties in the Coastal Plains have increases for about 13.6% this year and 13.5% next.
The Department of Insurance’s last rate settlement was in 2021 and lasted through 2024. The next filing won’t happen before June 1, 2027.
Mortgages for the most part reflect the national market. North Carolina has a high share of vacation and rental properties along its 320 miles of ocean shoreline. North Carolina law enacted by the Republican majority Legislature in July 2024 requires disclosure of being in a flood zone during a sale of property.
In Rhode Island, Pawtuxet River flooding is being examined. Calls have been made to expand the analysis to the Woonasquatucket and Pocasset rivers. Total direct premiums for homeowners insurance increased 53% from 2013 to 2022, a report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners says.
“Rhode Island has seen our rivers flood from massive rain bursts,” Whitehouse said. “We’ve seen our coastal communities hit by ocean storms and sea level rise. Those are familiar things to North Carolina, and it’s starting to land in people’s homeowners insurance, either in increased cost or in nonrenewals.
“And then that hits your home mortgage, and then that hits the value of your property.”
