I don't know if this is related, but occasionally I get some new insurance quotes just to make sure I'm not missing out on any deals, and this year I'm being asked for all sorts of details I've never been asked before. I've been asked for pictures inside and out, documentation from the county, information about my pets, specifics about my roof material, letters from past insurers.

I've been with three different insurance companies in the past and it was always just basics like square footage, distance to fire hall. I get the feeling these companies don't really want my business, but they also don't want to tell me no, so they just send me on irritating errands to get strange info for them.

Let insurance companies go after oil companies to recoup costs!

meanwhile in the US:

Affordable home insurance is getting increasingly hard to find in wildfire-prone areas in the West. Climate change, along with flammable fuel buildup, is causing bigger, more frequent and more destructive wildfires, putting more and more homes at risk. Meanwhile, climate change is also driving other costly disasters, such as hurricanes and flooding. https://www.hcn.org/issues/56.1/wildfire-homeowners-insurance-is-going-up-in-smoke

Developer: "Hey, there's a lot of waterfront land people would like to build their homes and cottages on."

Town: "Yeah, we don't build there because it flooded a hundred years ago."

Developer: "Pfft. A hundred years? Think of all the property taxes you'll be able to collect on these modern luxury waterfront homes."

Town: "Well, since you put it that way..."

If you're building anything under 100m above sea level, you're fucking crazy. My place is around 120m above sea level, and I'm considering selling and moving up to the 250m-500m level.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

"It's important to note these losses are coming from not any one single type of event," said Craig Stewart, the group's vice-president of climate change and federal issues.

Stewart's group has been pressing the federal government to put in place a national flood insurance program that would provide coverage in high-risk areas.

Joanna Kanga, a spokesperson for the minister of Emergency Preparedness, said the federal government "continues to engage provinces and territories, industry stakeholders and Indigenous representatives on the development and implementation of the low-cost flood insurance program."

A federal government plan is necessary to ensure property owners have coverage, but Canadians need to take precautions themselves, said Anabela Bonada, a research associate at the University of Waterloo's Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation.

Insured losses reflect just a small part of the damage caused by extreme weather and highlight the need for governments to put more money into adaptation measures, said Ryan Ness, a research director with the Canadian Climate Institute.

A report by the institute estimated that every dollar invested in climate adaptation, such as designing roads to make them more resilient to flooding, will return $13 to $15 in avoided costs.

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