Things are changing fast in the home insurance market

Make Me Smart

In the weeks after Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the Southeast, the price to rebuild has become a topic of contention in the home insurance market. For years, home insurers have identified climate change as a threat, cut coverage and increased premiums for properties in disaster-prone areas. But now, home insurers are also using new technologies such as drone footage and artificial intelligence to identify other high-risk areas in urban and suburban neighborhoods.

Then, we’ll get into what headline inflation measures leave out of the cost of housing. And, how do we prepare for the upcoming Election Day in the shadow of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol? Later, we’ll hear from listeners on voting from overseas and the origins of trick-or-treating.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “Home Insurance is a Really Big Problem” from Kyla Scanlon on Substack

• “Rising insurance costs are making homeownership even more expensive” from Marketplace

• “How Higher Property Insurance Premiums Mirror Climate Risk” from Knowledge at Wharton

• “How the Home Insurance Market Became So Distorted” from The New York Times

• “The Home Insurance Crunch: See What’s Happening in Your State” from The New York Times

• “Can lawmakers save the collapsing Florida home insurance market?” from Bankrate

• “The Very Real Scenario Where Trump Loses and Takes Power Anyway” from Politico

• “America’s Most Famous Inflation Gauge Is Easing — But Some of Your Biggest Expenses Are Left Out” from Bloomberg

Do you have an Election Day tradition? Maybe you like to mail your ballot or treat yourself to coffee after hitting the polls. Let us know what your voting routine looks like at [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.