• Homeowners are increasingly being dropped by their private home insurers.
• Regions with the highest nonrenewal rates are most prone to wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters.
• A new Senate report warns of economic risks as climate change destabilizes insurance markets.

Homeowners across the country are increasingly facing a stark new reality: they're losing their home insurance.

The share of home insurance policies from large insurers that weren't renewed increased last year in 46 states, a report released Wednesday by the Senate Budget Committee found. The increasing frequency and intensity of disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding and the rising cost of rebuilding have pushed many insurers to drop customers or hike premiums. This has left thousands of homeowners scrambling to find new insurance policies or joining the growing ranks of those going without insurance.

More than 200 counties saw their non-renewal rates spike threefold between 2018 and 2023. Counties in Northern California and South Florida saw among the highest rates of nonrenewals. Coastal counties in Massachusetts, Mississippi, and North Carolina also saw dropped policies soar. Manhattan ranks 20th, with rates of dropped policies rising from 1.25% in 2018 to 4.11% in 2023.

The national scale of home insurance nonrenewals was previously unknown because insurance companies are regulated at the state level. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said not all states collect granular data about the availability and affordability of coverage in some areas. The association in March announced an effort with state insurance regulators to try to fill the gap.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse launched his own investigation into the homeowners' insurance market last year. He received nonrenewal data from 23 companies accounting for about two-thirds of the market. In testimony on Wednesday, Whitehouse said he demanded nonrenewal data because experts suggested policies being dropped were an early warning sign of market destabilization. He also said they correlated with higher premiums.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Association, a lobbying group representing insurance companies, said nonrenewal data doesn't provide "relevant information" on climate risks. Many factors, including a state's litigation and regulatory environment, factor into nonrenewal decisions, the association said.

The association added that more costly weather disasters, combined with inflation and overbuilding in climate-risk regions, are making insurance less affordable for many Americans.

Home insurance premiums are rising in many regions across the country. The National Bureau of Economic Research recently reported that average home insurance premiums spiked by 13%, adjusted for inflation, between 2020 and 2023.

Most mortgage lenders require homeowners to purchase insurance, and some require additional insurance for specific disasters, including flooding. Insurers refusing to offer coverage can hurt home values because homes that can't be insured in the private market are less desirable to potential buyers.

The Senate Budget report warned that the insurance crisis will get worse as the climate crisis fuels more frequent and destructive disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding. A destabilized insurance market could "trigger cascading economy-wide financial upheaval," the report said.

"The failure to deal with climate change isn't just driving up the cost of homeowners' insurance, it's making it harder for families to even find homeowners' insurance, and that makes it harder to get a mortgage," Whitehouse said in a statement to Business Insider. "When the pool of buyers is limited to only those who can pay cash, it cuts off pathways to homeownership—particularly for first-time homebuyers—and risks cascading into a crash in property values that trashes the entire economy."

Have you been dropped by your home insurance company or are you facing a steep premium increase? Email these reporters to share your story: [email protected] and [email protected].

• Elon Musk says he wants to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• The CFPB was created after the 2008 crisis to protect consumers from financial abuses.
• The CFPB has recouped billions for consumers but has long faced political and legal challenges.

In his efforts to cut government costs, Elon Musk has thrown his support behind slashing a federal office created in the wake of the Great Recession to regulate financial services used by Americans.

"Delete CFPB," Musk wrote on X early Wednesday of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies."

Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked with heading up the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and finding ways to reduce spending and streamline bureaucracy within the federal government. The unofficial advisors have floated "deleting" entire agencies, laying off staff, and enforcing return-to-office mandates.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Trump's transition team said she had nothing to add to Musk's statement.

While it's unclear how DOGE and the incoming Trump Administration would abolish agencies, if it does, the CFPB could be on the chopping block. Here's a look at its purpose, employee makeup, and political controversies.

Why it was created

The CFPB was created by Congress as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The law aimed to strengthen oversight of Wall Street after its risky mortgage lending practices caused the global financial crisis. The CFPB has a broad mandate to protect Americans from deceptive or abusive practices by US financial firms. The agency investigates consumer complaints related to credit cards, loans, bank accounts, and debt collection and enforces consumer protection laws.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School, originally proposed the agency in 2007. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Warren to head the CFPB's steering committee to help establish it.

"The time for hiding tricks and traps in the fine print is over," Warren said during a White House ceremony that year. "This new bureau is based on the simple idea that if the playing field is level and families can see what's going on, they will have better tools to make better choices."

How many people it employs

As of March 2024, the CFPB employed just under 1,700 people, earning an average of about $184,000 a year, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The Bureau's 2024 financial report broke that workforce into six groups; about 43% of CFPB's employees work in the supervision and enforcement of financial institutions, 18% in operations supporting the Bureau's other initiatives, and 14% in research, monitoring, and regulations.

What it has accomplished

Since its founding, the CFPB has recouped $19.6 billion for consumers through direct compensation, canceled debt, and reduced loan principals.

The agency has also issued $5 billion in civil penalties against banks, credit unions, debt collectors, payday lenders, for-profit colleges, and other financial services companies. That money is deposited into a victims' relief fund, with nearly 200 million people eligible for relief.

Some of CFPB's most high-profile enforcement actions have been against Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The agency in 2023 accused Bank of America of harming hundreds of thousands of customers by charging illegal fees, withholding credit card cash and reward points, and enrolling them in credit card accounts without their knowledge. Bank of America agreed to pay $250 million. In 2022, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3.7 billion — a record sum — after a CFPB investigation alleged the bank mismanaged auto loans, mortgages, and deposit accounts, causing some customers to lose their vehicles and homes.

Last week, the agency finalized a rule expanding its oversight to big tech companies like Apple, Google, and Venmo, which offer digital wallets and payment apps and process some 13 billion transactions a year. Earlier this year, the CFPB also limited credit card late fees to $8 a month, compared to the average $32 fee charged by issuers in 2022.

Political controversy

Democrats designed the CFPB to have political independence by funding it through the Federal Reserve rather than While Democrats argue that the CFPB's independence is crucial to its efficacy, Republicans say the agency's funding source and governing structure make it unaccountable to the public and encourage regulatory overreach.

Since its founding, the CFPB has faced legal challenges from Republicans and the banking industry, who've taken issue with a slew of agency policies, including those regulating credit card late fees and those making it easier for consumers to switch between banks.

In May 2024, the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the agency's funding structure, reversing a lower court decision in a 7-2 ruling. The high court's decision — authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative — has bolstered the agency but likely won't shield it from ongoing criticism and legal attacks.

Not everything the agency does has courted controversy. Recently, the agency won praise from Republicans for a new rule that would allow consumers to have more control over how their financial data is used by banks and other financial firms.