High tide and hypocrisy are driving up insurance premiums

Here in New Jersey, where the Atlantic relentlessly redraws our coastline and the price of a roof over one’s head is a daily conversation, a quiet, expensive crisis is unfolding. It arrives not with a hurricane’s fanfare, but in the stark, plain language of an annual renewal notice.

Across the nation, the dream of homeownership is being financially squeezed from an unexpected direction: the very insurance meant to protect it.

A gathering storm of climate change is devastating policies and premiums, and a new report posits that the political winds from Washington are actively worsening the gale, fueled by millions from the insurance industry’s own coffers.

The facts are as measurable as the sea-level rise at Cape May. Since 2021, property insurers have raised rates for at least six million American policyholders and have canceled altogether a staggering 1.4 million policies.

The reason cited in more than one of every four such actions is no mystery: extreme weather and climate disasters.

This is not a problem confined to distant Florida beaches or California canyons; it is a national recalculation of risk. Right here in the Garden State, insurers have implemented a rate hike of 12.9%, a signal that the financial tides of this crisis reach our own shores.

Now, here is where the story takes a turn from the unsettling to the bitterly ironic. While executing this great retreat from risk, the insurance industry itself has floated to remarkable prosperity.

Last year, a group of 22 publicly traded insurance companies reported profits sailing past $36 billion.

Their captains were handsomely rewarded, with chief executives receiving total compensation cresting $220 million.

One might think such prosperity would foster stability, yet the opposite has occurred for millions of homeowners.

This brings us to the knotty question of cause and effect, and a political connection worth nearly four million dollars.

According to the analysis, the homeowners’ insurance industry has given more than $3.7 million to the political orbit of former President Donald Trump.

This includes over $1.3 million donated directly to his presidential campaigns and nearly $2.5 million more from related companies and investors to his inaugural committees.

The report contends this financial support flows to a political agenda that is actively deepening the affordability crisis for the very people paying the premiums.

The mechanism, experts argue, is twofold. First, a policy of sweeping tariffs, particularly on construction materials, is projected to increase the cost of rebuilding after disasters.

The National Association of Home Builders estimates these tariffs could add over $10,900 to the cost of a new home.

Insurers, facing more expensive repair bills, pass those costs directly to policyholders through higher premiums. Second, proposed deep cuts to federal disaster relief and resilience programs, including threats to agencies like FEMA, would remove the critical backstop that helps communities recover.

Without this support, the full, staggering cost of climate-driven disasters falls onto the balance sheets of insurance companies, which again, pass it down the line. In short, the policies are projected to accelerate the very cost increases devastating family budgets.

So, what does this mean for a family in Toms River or Newark? It means the security of homeownership feels increasingly fragile.

It means the annual premium notice is no longer a routine formality but a document of anxiety, a bill for a changing world and a political calculation.

The cancelled policies in California and the 63% rate hike in Louisiana are not anomalies; they are the leading edge of a financial restructuring that respects no state border.

The enduring question for New Jersey is whether the contract of mutual security—a family pays a premium, the company guarantees peace of mind—can survive this double burden of natural force and human policy.

When an industry contributes millions to support agendas that are forecast to make its product more costly and less accessible, it creates a perplexing loop where the pursuit of political influence appears at odds with the promise of public protection.

The open secret is that the stability we once took for granted is now at the mercy of the weather and the whims of Washington. And for countless families watching the sea creep closer and the bills climb higher, that is a very precarious place to be.