Hurricane Helene is hitting Florida homeowners who are already facing rising insurance costs

As Hurricane Helene The winds and flooding from the storm that swept across Florida left a trail of damaged homes and caused an estimated $6 billion in damages private insurance claimssaid global reinsurance broker Gallagher Re.

As homeowners assess the damage, the storm is drawing renewed attention to Florida’s shaky home insurance market. According to a recent report from the Florida Policy Project, rising premiums have put pressure on homeowners, who faced a 45% increase in insurance rates from 2017 to 2022.

The average annual premium for a Florida homeowner is $5,500 — about 140% more than the average U.S. homeowners insurance premium of $2,285, according to Bankrate. The increase in costs sometimes causes some Florida residents to forego insurance altogether tell CBS Miami reported that they were hit with installments of up to $20,000 a year.

As extreme weather events become more frequent and destructive due to climate change, homeowners in parts of the U.S. facing increasing risks are likely to face significantly higher insurance costs in the coming years, according to a June paper from experts at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin Pennsylvania.

“Property insurance serves as the front line of defense against climate risks for homeowners and real estate investors,” the researchers noted. “We estimate that by 2053, climate-exposed homeowners will pay $700 more in annual premiums due to increasing wildfire and hurricane risks.”

Separate research from Harvard University, Columbia University and the Federal Reserve found that Florida is among the U.S. states with the highest projected future economic losses related to climate change.

But losses in the Florida insurance industry are also currently impacting property insurance. Traditional insurers have pulled back from offering home insurance in the state, particularly in the more disaster-prone regions, while insurer of last resort Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and newer insurers are filling the gap.

At the same time, these insurers face higher rates from reinsurance companies, which are financial companies that provide insurance to insurers. Because insurance companies can be financially devastated by an extreme storm or other catastrophic event, they often turn to reinsurance companies to mitigate the risk.

“Florida has much greater exposure to the global reinsurance market than any other state in the country,” Jeff Brandes, founder and president of the Florida Policy Project, told CBS MoneyWatch.

Hurricanes illustrate why reinsurers are “very cautious about price reductions, which definitely impacts Floridians,” Brandes added, noting that initial damage assessments indicate that Helene’s impact on Florida properties appears to be less severe than initially feared.

“If this had moved a few degrees east and hit Tampa Bay, the damage would have been 20 times greater,” he said.

Meanwhile, recent reforms to Florida’s insurance market could provide some relief for cost-burdened homeowners. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed one comprehensive property insurance bill A new law is set to be introduced at the end of 2022 that aims to prevent frivolous lawsuits and limit costs for insurers.

Although this could help stave off rate hikes in the short term, Florida homeowners and insurers could be powerless in the longer term as the planet continues to warm.

“As losses from climate change increase, risks to insurers’ financial stability are likely to become even greater,” the researchers from Harvard, Columbia and the Fed found. “We are likely to see policymakers having to make difficult trade-offs when it comes to maintaining the affordability, availability and reliability of insurance markets.”