Boiling Point Introduces: A Matter of Degrees

Summary

Boiling Point Podcast Episode Summary: "Boiling Point Introduces: A Matter of Degrees"

Release Date: June 26, 2025
Host/Author: LA Times Studios

Climate change continues to exert profound pressure on California's infrastructure, economy, and residents. In this episode of "Boiling Point," award-winning LA Times columnist Sammy Roth introduces listeners to an insightful discussion from another climate-focused podcast, "A Matter of Degrees," hosted by Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson. The episode delves deep into the intersection of climate change and the insurance industry, highlighting the escalating challenges and exploring potential solutions.

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1. The Escalating Climate Insurance Crisis

[00:26] Dave Jones: "For many Americans, the single biggest financial asset you have is your home. If you don't have insurance or you can't afford enough insurance and that home is destroyed, then you're left with basically nothing. Insurance is the climate crisis canary in the coal mine, and the canary is just about dead."

Dave Jones, former California Insurance Commissioner and current director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley, sets the stage by emphasizing the critical role insurance plays in safeguarding American homeowners against increasingly frequent climate disasters. He poignantly compares the insurance industry's plight to a "canary in the coal mine," indicating that the sector's struggles are early indicators of broader societal impacts from climate change.

2. The Fair Plan: A Safety Net Under Strain

As wildfires ravage Southern California, the limitations of existing insurance frameworks become starkly apparent.

[02:32] Dave Jones: "That's right. It's a very long and challenging process to go through the claims process and to rebuild your home."

The Fair Plan, designed as a last-resort insurance option for those dropped by private insurers, is struggling to keep pace with the surge in climate-induced disasters. California's recent wildfires, which resulted in significant loss of life and property, have pushed the Fair Plan to its financial limits.

[06:42] Dr. Leah Stokes: "It's not going to be the companies on the hook, which was the whole point of the Fair Plan. It's going to be everyday people."

The Fair Plan's solvency is jeopardized, with estimates suggesting that it requires an additional $1 billion to remain functional following the latest fires. Alarmingly, half of this funding would come from ordinary homeowners across the state, rather than the insurance companies themselves—a significant shift from the plan's original intent.

3. Accountability and the Oil & Gas Industry

A central theme of the discussion revolves around the accountability of the oil and gas sector in exacerbating climate change and, by extension, the insurance crisis.

[08:12] Dave Jones: "I think that there's another important industry that's a major contributor to climate change that's not being asked to pay, really, and that's the oil and gas industry."

Jones highlights the historical and ongoing role of major fossil fuel companies in contributing to climate change. Despite internal acknowledgments in the 60s and 70s about the environmental impact of their operations, these companies largely failed to take meaningful action, instead opting to obscure the truth and delay necessary transitions away from fossil fuels.

[10:22] Dr. Leah Stokes: "And you know, they understood with breathtaking accuracy where we were headed. They knew what was going to happen, but their reaction to the truth was, hey, how about we lie about it?"

This deception has not only hindered climate action but also intensified the financial strain on the insurance industry by increasing the frequency and severity of natural disasters.

4. Legislative Solutions: Senate Bill 222

Addressing the insurance industry's challenges requires systemic changes, as proposed through various legislative measures.

[20:39] Dave Jones: "Now the really exciting news is that Scott Wiener, who's a state senator from San Francisco, has introduced a bill, Senate Bill 222, which picks up on these ideas."

Senate Bill 222 is a pivotal piece of legislation aimed at creating a "private right of action" for individuals and businesses to sue oil and gas companies. Additionally, it empowers insurance companies to bring lawsuits against these fossil fuel giants, holding them accountable for their role in climate change and its resultant damages.

[22:30] Dr. Leah Stokes: "So the world will look a lot better, shockingly, if we take on the climate crisis and we get insurance companies to help us to help hold fossil fuel companies accountable."

The bill represents a significant step toward rectifying the imbalance where everyday individuals bear the financial brunt of climate disasters instead of the industries most responsible for them.

5. The Future of Insurance and Homeownership

The conversation underscores the intertwined fate of insurance availability and the broader housing market.

[34:07] Dr. Leah Stokes: "And there was one thing that really stayed with me after this conversation with Dave, which is that this dynamic around insurance could mean that everyday Americans, everyday people, will not be able to own their homes to the same extent because they won't be able to insure them."

As insurance becomes less accessible and more expensive, the ability to own and maintain a home—central to the American Dream—comes into jeopardy. This not only affects individual families but also has cascading effects on economic and social mobility across the nation.

[35:23] Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson: "To own a home without taking on wild amounts of risk, certainly untenable for most people."

The instability in the insurance market, driven by climate change, threatens to undermine foundational aspects of American society, from homeownership to community stability.

6. Mitigation Efforts and Insurance Industry's Role

While systemic changes are crucial, there are actionable steps that can be taken to alleviate some of the immediate pressures on homeowners and the insurance sector.

[22:30] Dave Jones: "In 2018, those homes that actually had been built to a higher building code, 50% more of them survived in that fire inferno than those that did not."

Investing in home hardening—such as using fire-resistant materials, installing shatter-resistant glass, and maintaining defensible spaces—can significantly enhance a home's resilience to natural disasters. However, despite the clear benefits, insurance companies often fail to recognize or reward these efforts.

[24:03] Dr. Leah Stokes: "It's outrageous."

Homeowners are frequently left to shoulder the costs of mitigation measures without any corresponding relief in their insurance premiums or support from insurers, exacerbating financial strains in disaster-prone areas.

7. Pathways to an Insurable Future

Looking ahead, Jones emphasizes the necessity of comprehensive policy reforms and a collective effort to transition away from fossil fuels.

[31:28] Dr. Leah Stokes: "So the world will look a lot better, shockingly, if we take on the climate crisis and we get insurance companies to help us to help hold fossil fuel companies accountable."

By aligning insurance industry practices with climate resilience efforts and ensuring that fossil fuel companies are held accountable for their contributions to climate change, a more sustainable and equitable future can be achieved. This holistic approach not only stabilizes the insurance market but also fosters broader societal resilience against the relentless march of climate-induced disasters.

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Conclusion

This episode of "Boiling Point" offers a sobering yet actionable examination of how climate change is unraveling the fabric of essential services like insurance, directly impacting homeowners and the broader economy. By spotlighting the need for legislative action, increased accountability for fossil fuel industries, and proactive mitigation efforts, the discussion charts a path toward mitigating the adverse effects of climate change on California's residents. As the insurance industry grapples with unprecedented challenges, the proposed solutions present a beacon of hope for a more resilient and equitable future.

Transcript

[Sami Roth]

Hey, everybody. This is Sami Roth, climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times. The Boiling Point team is off this week, so instead we're going to share an episode of another climate podcast. It's called A Matter of Degrees, and It's hosted by Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson. I really hope you enjoy it.

[Dave Jones]

For many Americans, the single biggest financial asset you have is your home. If you don't have insurance or you can't afford enough insurance and that home is destroyed, then you're left with basically nothing. Insurance is the climate crisis canary in the coal mine, and the canary is just about dead.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

I'm Dr. Leah Stokes.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

And I'm Dr. Katherine Wilkinson. And this is a matter of degrees. Let's be honest. Most people hope to never have to deal with insurance companies or really even think about insurance.

[Sami Roth]

But.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

But when disaster strikes, insurance can become the most important thing in the world for people. And climate change means that disaster is striking a lot more often.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

So we called Dave Jones to try to figure out what the future of insurance looks like under the new reality of the climate crisis and how we might navigate a path forward.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

He was California's insurance commissioner from 2011 to 2018, and now he directs the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley's center for Law, Energy and the Environment.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

We got in touch with Dave as wildfires raged across Southern California. They're no longer burning, but the damage is breathtaking. 29 people lost their lives. Over 150,000 people were displaced, and over 57,000 acres were burned.

[Dave Jones]

It's a horrible tragedy. And people were killed, people were injured. People lost the most important possession in their entire life. They lost all of their worldly possessions, all of their history in a moment.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Now people who lost everything have to rebuild, and they're looking to their insurance companies to help them out.

[Dave Jones]

So most people have private insurance, but some people didn't. Some people either because the price was too high or it was too challenging for them to find insurance, they don't have it. And FEMA is not going to help them rebuild their home. FEMA will give you 30, $40,000 at most. Those people are really in desperate straits because they have nothing to enable them to rebuild the home. Then there's folks who are underinsured. So those people are also going to face a challenge because they have insurance, but it's not going to be enough to completely repair their home.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

For example, like, we'll give you a million dollars, but to actually rebuild their home will take 2 million, especially because everybody else is trying to do it at the same time and there's no contractors and everything's going through the roof. Price wise, they don't have enough money to actually do it.

[Dave Jones]

That's right. It's a very long and challenging process to go through the claims process and to rebuild your home. You can also then be contending with shortages in material and shortages in contractors because some 16,000 structures burned down at least, and all of them at roughly the same time are trying to find contractors and laborers and material to rebuild. So it's a very painful process.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

An area the size of D.C. and Manhattan combined burned down in Southern California. Insurance companies don't want to cover all of those damages, so they're likely not going to help people rebuild entirely. And that's for people who have insurance plans.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

In la, many people who lost their homes had been recently dropped by their insurance providers. That means they had no insurance at all in a lot of cases.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

So what happens then? What options do people have?

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

I asked Dave the same questions. So, you know, people who live in California might have heard about the Fair Plan, right? This is this sort of insurance plan of last resort when people are getting dropped by their insurance companies.

[Dave Jones]

Basically the rationale is that because states allow insurance companies to pick and choose who they're going to insure, states wanted to make sure that the insurance companies just weren't shoving people and businesses into the void without insurance. So they said, if you're writing insurance in this state, then you're going to be required to participate in this association called the Fair Plan and it will write insurance for the things that you won't write insurance for. Some 35 states have them. They're not taxpayer funded, they're not government agencies, they're private associations. It's a way of keeping the private insurers skin in the game. They can't just cherry pick the good risks and make money in those. They're going to also have to participate in, in making sure that the Fair Plan has the ability to pay claims. Now, there are exceptions. Last year they obtained an order from the Department of Insurance that changes the rule in California so that instead of the insurers being on the hook, if the Fair Plan runs out of money, all policyholders are, and that is a big change.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Dave is saying that right now if insurance companies just don't want to insure some people, then they get passed on to this Fair Plan. Right?

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Leah, the Fair Plan is basically an option for people of last resort. It is a pool of money that the insurance companies need to set aside to make sure that they can cover claims for folks who aren't on their standard plans.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

But if the Fair Plan runs out of money, which it seems like it will, given how climate change is multiplying damages, then other homeowners have to pick up the tab, Is that right? Even if they weren't the ones impacted by the disaster?

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Yeah, that's right. It's not going to be the companies on the hook, which was the whole point of the Fair Plan. It's going to be everyday people. And the scale of what we're talking about is truly massive. In early February, the State of California estimated that the Fair Plan would need to raise $1 billion just to stay solvent after these payouts from these LA fires. And half of money, around $500 million that's going to come from homeowners, just everyday people in California.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

And in this case, we've got a situation where people in Sacramento could end up paying for the damage of the LA fires or some other climate disaster that happens hundreds of miles away. But the insurance companies, whose job it is to be there after these exact disasters, they don't want to and they don't have to, is that right?

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Yeah, they just get to keep their own profits and push the costs onto everyday people. And climate change is really breaking the insurance system, leaving regular people on the hook. But Dave had some ideas about who else we could hold responsible. If every policyholder is going to be paying for the Fair Plan if it runs out of money, which it is going to do after these fires and la, how do you feel about, like, is that right? Is that how we should be paying for these disasters?

[Dave Jones]

I think that there's another important industry that's a major contributor to climate change that's not being asked to pay, really, and that's the oil and gas industry.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

I'm shocked to hear you say that, Dave.

[Dave Jones]

They're not at the table and they need to be at the table. So just to lay this out for your listeners, I mean, I think first it's important to understand that in the 60s and 70s, the major oil companies had scientists internally sending communications up to the executives of the company and the board indicating that emissions from the fossil fuel companies were contributing to global temperature rise. And that global temperature rise was going to change the climate change, and that climate change was going to result in more severe and catastrophic weather related events. And so the oil and gas companies knew. And yet instead of disclosing that to the public and working with local, state and federal policymakers to do something about that they lied about it. So they bear a substantial amount of the responsibility for what's happened because of those lies. It set back the effort to do something about climate change. It continues to set back efforts to do it. And at the same time, their emissions have continued to grow, leading to more severe and extreme weather related events, which are also not only killing more people and injuring more people, but making it increasingly difficult for insurers to keep writing insurance and helps explain why they're raising rates and why they're declining to write insurance. So the oil and gas industry ought to be at the table trying to address this issue too. They're not.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Dave's really picking up on a key theme that we have brought to our listeners again and again on this show, which is about accountability. There needs to be accountability for fossil fuel deception, misinformation and culpability in the situation that we're in.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

And you know, they understood with breathtaking accuracy where we were headed. They knew what was going to happen, but their reaction to the truth was, hey, how about we lie about it? Because if we can slow down the transition away from fossil fuels that's profitable for us, that makes us money, there's.

[Dave Jones]

Some ways in which we could bring them to the table. I mean, one is that states like California and local governments like the county of Alameda have brought lawsuits against the major oil and gas companies to seek damages for their contribution to damages that the state and the city have incurred in terms of infrastructure and payouts associated with recovery and those sorts of things. Right. But individuals and businesses ought to be able to sue as well. And so one of the ideas I've surfaced is that there ought to be a private right of action for individuals and businesses so that they can bring lawsuits against the oil and gas companies for their contribution to these catastrophic events. Another idea is insurance companies ought to be bringing lawsuits too. Right? Insurance companies are paying out billions of dollars for all of these different catastrophic events. And they have something called the right of subrogation, which is a fancy word for they can stand in the shoes of their policyholders and bring lawsuits against those that harm their policyholders. And they've done exactly that in the utility context. Insurance companies have brought lawsuits against utilities for starting fires that cause the insurance companies to pay out money, and they've gotten billions. And they've brought lawsuits against big opioid and big tobacco health insurers have for payouts they've made to provide health coverage and medical care for individuals that they're covering through their health insurance policies, who have become addicted to opioids or have suffered from utilization of cigarettes.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

To be honest, I don't have the cash to, let's say, bring a lawsuit against Chevron, but I would be delighted if my insurance company wanted to sue Chevron on my behalf. I think that would be totally great.

[Dave Jones]

What's interesting is that notwithstanding having the right to sue, not one insurance company has brought a lawsuit against the major oil and gas companies, even though there's a well trod path to doing so. So that might cause your listeners to wonder, why is that?

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

I have a guess. Dave, can I guess?

[Dave Jones]

You might have a guess. You might have a guess. You know where I'm going.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Do they perhaps have, I don't know, trillions of dollars of investments in the fossil fuel industry directly?

[Dave Jones]

You hit the nail on the head. So when I was Insurance Commissioner in 2016, I started asking insurance companies, to what extent are you invested in oil, gas, coal and utilities? And I was asking that question as a financial regulator concerned that insurance companies ought to be paying attention to their investments in fossil fuels. Because as we transition out of fossil fuels, fossil fuels might not be worth as much as. And I want insurance companies, as a financial regulator, to be invested in things that retain value so there's money there at the end of the day to pay claims. Right. So it wasn't as an environmentalist, it wasn't as someone worried about climate. It was just as a financial regulator started asking these questions. Well come to find out that they have half a trillion dollars invested in fossil fuels. Like State Farm, for example, has $30 billion invested in fossil fuels. Allstate, I think around 12 billion. These are the same companies that are telling Californians, look, because of the rising risk associated with wildfire and other climatic events, we can't write insurance for you anymore. Well, then I think the question that needs to be posed back to them is how does it possibly make sense for us to allow you to invest in the fossil fuel industry, the very industry whose emissions are posing an existential threat to your ability to keep writing? Insurance makes no sense.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

So this is a really important point that we actually took up in an episode, I don't know, Leah, back in 2021. Insurance companies hold a lot of money, right? All that money that we're paying in on our plans, year to year, month to month, they invest it somewhere. And a lot of those investments turn out to be in fossil fuels.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

You might know that banks, for example, are investing a lot of money in fossil fuels. Banks like Chase. But it's also Insurance companies. And I find that so mind boggling because it's like these are the people who are supposed to be managing risk and their idea of the best thing to do is put that money in fossil fuels. What?

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

It really makes you wonder if these people understand the word risk. It's deeply ironic that insurance companies are investing their money in the very companies that undermining their business models. Insurance companies cannot make money if they are constantly paying out claims to people affected by climate related disasters. So we've got to ask what's being done about it?

[Mary Knoff]

Hi, my name is Mary Knoff and I'm a producer on Boiling Point. We are here with Joanne o' Neill, director of Customer programs at Glenn Clean Power Alliance. Hi Joanne.

[Joanne O'Neill]

Hello.

[Mary Knoff]

Can you tell us a little bit about Clean Power Alliance?

[Joanne O'Neill]

Yeah. So Clean Power alliance is the not for profit electricity provider for 3 million residents and businesses across Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

[Mary Knoff]

What renewable energy options does CPA offer its customers?

[Joanne O'Neill]

So Clean Power alliance offers customers a series of choices between Lean Power, clean power or 100% green power to ensure that people have the option to choose a rate that's right for them and maximize their renewable energy.

[Mary Knoff]

Well, thank you so much for speaking with us, Joanne.

[Joanne O'Neill]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Mary Knoff]

Take the next step in building a more resilient and clean energy future for Southern California. To learn more, please visit cleanpoweralliance.org powerresponse. Again, that's cleanpoweralliance.org powerResponse.

[Unknown]

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[Dave Jones]

Unfortunately, they're not voluntarily moving out of those investments and they're also not bringing lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry. So this is a place where state legislatures and state governors need to stand up to the insurance industry and say enough is enough. We're going to require you to transition out of these investments. We're going to require you to transition out of writing insurance for this industry. We're going to demand that you actually bring subrogation claims against the oil and gas industry so that your only response isn't just to stop writing insurance, but to also participate in holding accountable the fossil fuel industry, whose emissions are the major driver of this crisis.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

It's so mind boggling to me. Dave, why do you think these companies invest so much in fossil fuels? It's so counterintuitive that you know, you're trying to reduce risk and yet you're investing in these very risky industries that then increase risk for your primary line of business.

[Dave Jones]

It's a short term focus instead of looking at the longer term. Oil and gas investments are providing positive returns, although there was a time when coal provided a positive return too, and then suddenly, no pun intended, dropped like a stone in terms of value and returns. Right? So just because something is the case now doesn't mean it's going to be the case forever. When I was insurance commissioner, I asked the companies to divest from coal and that resulted in about $4 billion in coal divestment. Sadly, no other financial regulator has asked companies to transition out of investments like this since.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

And then the other idea that you kind of mentioned is that you could get this done at the state legislature, right? So you could say, pass a law that would say, hey, insurance companies, you got to divest. Is that how that would work? Dave?

[Dave Jones]

That's right. There's no federal regulation of insurance, but that means that states can pass laws that govern insurance markets and insurance companies in their state. And one of the laws they ought to pass is a requirement that insurance companies transition out of their investments in fossil fuels and others that they transition out of their writing of insurance for fossil fuels. And a third is pushing them to actually bring lawsuits, subrogation claims against the oil majors.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

So it'd be like rather than an individual who owned a home in the Palisades suing a fossil fuel company, the insurance company would do it. And then you're also arguing that there could be a law passed that would just allow that individual homeowner to directly do it too, if they wanted to. I think there are some wealthy people whose houses burned down, for example, who might want to bring some lawsuits.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

So in a moment where I can imagine you are feeling so deeply lonely, you are feeling so deeply up against the systems that should be supporting you, but in the aftermath of losing your home really are not, like, it would be amazing to be able to band together with your neighbors, with your community, and actually leverage the force of the law to get some justice.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

The fact is, we don't have this private right of action available right now. And without it, we as individuals experiencing the impacts of climate change really don't have a legal mechanism to hold fossil fuel companies accountable. But Dave told me that there are pieces of legislation on the table in California right now that are trying to fix that.

[Dave Jones]

Now the really exciting news is that Scott Wiener, who's a state senator from San Francisco, has introduced a bill, Senate Bill 222, which picks up on these ideas. It creates a private right of action for individuals and businesses against the oil and gas companies. It creates a direct cause of action for insurance companies against the oil and gas companies. And it places a duty on the fair plan to begin to bring these lawsuits too. So we have an exciting opportunity to advance that policy in California. Of course, the oil and gas companies already come out heavily against it, so it's going to be a big fight. But your listeners should know that a bill has been introduced and that Scott Wiener is the author of that bill.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

That's great news. And in some sense it's about making the fair plan more fair, isn't it? Right. It's like how come I have to pay for these damages in LA as just a person who has a home in California?

[Dave Jones]

That's right, it is. I mean fundamentally it's about making polluters pay. I think it is important, as we've been discussing, to focus on the underlying cause of the insurance crisis, which is climate change and our failure to transition from from fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas emitting industries. Now, having said that, there are some things that insurers could do on top of what we've described that would make things better. There is a body of things one can do to harden your home against a wildfire. You can use roofing materials that are more impervious to fire. Shatter resistant glass so when the heat comes doesn't shatter the glass, you can defensible space is another clearing vegetation within a certain perimeter around the home. These things work. They make a real difference. They're not a guarantee that your home won't burn down, but in the camp fire, which was a horrific, horrific firestorm, some 86 people killed, an entire community wiped out.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Paradise is Paradise.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Yeah.

[Dave Jones]

In 2018, those homes that actually had been built to a higher building code, 50% more of them survived in that fire inferno than those that did not. So home hardening and defensible space are not a guarantee that your home's going to survive, but it's going to increase the likelihood that it will. And then there are nature based investments that we are making like forest treatment using prescribed fire and thinning, not clear cutting to reduce the vegetation and fuel in forest. Here's the kicker though, and what so many people are frustrated, and rightly so about. They can do all these things and yet the insurance company gives them no credit in terms of writing or renewing the insurance. The models, the computer models the insurance companies use are technically able to account for mitigation. The insurers just don't do it. California has the regulation required that insurers provide a little discount if you do home hardening in defensible space, or little discounts for great, but you don't get the discount if they won't write you the insurance. So here's another place where the state legislature and governor need to stand up the insurance industry and say, enough's enough. We're spending billions on mitigation, homeowners are spending hundreds of millions on mitigation, and yet you don't account for it in your decision making about renewing or writing insurance. That's outrageous.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Clearly these are issues that are really being pushed on everyday people. Why is it up to every human being to say, hey, I made these changes at my home and now I need to go tell my insurance provider that I did that? And there should be systems that make it easier for people to do the right thing and to get incentives, get a lower premium just for doing that.

[Dave Jones]

That's right. But it's even worse than that. You can tell the insurance company you did it and they still don't care because. Because their models don't account for it. So I, you know, again, I can't tell you the number of homeowners I've talked to who said, hey, I spent $10,000 on the list of things that the insurers told me I need to do to harden my home and I'm doing defensible space and they just dropped me.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

It just all feels so incredibly unfair.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

It is. As somebody who lives in California, this has happened to me. It's happened to so many people. Insurance companies are trying to drop so many people and they really don't care or spend any time trying to figure out if folks have made decisions to make their home safer. In the case of a wildfire, for example.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

And of course, we're still in pretty early days of the climate crisis. So as this whole situation worsens, this is going to become a bigger and bigger problem. Devastating disasters like these recent fires in LA or Hurricane Helene in my neck of the woods, these are going to happen more frequently and people are going to need more help to rebuild. Right now, insurance companies are Basically allowed to just walk away from some people because they are too high risk. And the cruel irony is that those high risk people are the most in need of insurance.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

And that's the theme that we keep hearing again and again. And what Dave is saying here, right, that consumers are being screwed over. They have very little protection, their efforts are not being recognized by insurance companies, they're getting dropped, and then at the end of the day they're stuck with the bill. They have to somehow pay for the damages from climate change rather than fossil fuel companies. This is nuts.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

And how can we expect people to have, let's say, planned for the realities of climate change when they've been living in a world of misinformation and disinformation and downright denial of what is happening? Like people haven't even had the information at hand to be able to make choices that could put them in a position to be more responsive to the situation. So it's just layer upon layer of basically screwing the American public.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Dave had some good ideas about how we could turn this situation around, how consumers could, you know, be protected again, which was the point of insurance in the first place. Let's say you had a lot of power to change things. What would be your wish list? Let's just recap some of these things. So one of them would be to have individuals and insurance companies be able to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their lies and deception and burning all this pollution, which increased climate change. Right. So what is the status of doing that as an idea?

[Dave Jones]

State's attorneys general, including our Attorney General Rob Bonta, and counties and cities have brought these lawsuits. And the lawsuits have been moving ahead for the last two years. Then we have Senate Bill 222 which creates in California a private right of action for individuals and businesses to bring lawsuits against oil and gas companies, creates a direct cause of action for insurers to bring lawsuits against oil and gas companies. And so I think that's something that we need to enact. Then the third thing would be for the state of California and other states to enact legislation requiring insurance companies to transition out of their investments in fossil fuels and transition out of writing insurance for fossil fuels. The fourth thing would be the state of California and other states adopting laws that require the insurance companies models to take into account investments in adaptation or mitigation that work and reduce risk so that people have a fighting chance of actually getting insurance written when they do these things. Fundamentally though, it all comes back to climate change. And what is the major driver of climate change. And so, in addition to those things that I've just described, we've got to redouble our efforts to reduce our utilization of fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas emitting industries, because that ultimately is what it's going to take to get us to a future that is insurable. Right now, we're marching steadily towards an uninsurable future. And in many parts of this country, we're already there, and it's only going to get worse. And it's not just Florida, not just Louisiana, not just California, but 18 states, including states in the Midwest and New England and the interior south, are in various ways seeing insurance companies stop writing insurance, stop renewing insurance and raising rates. It's landing everywhere. And not only is it causing things that historically have killed us and injured us and damaged our property to get worse, but it's creating new things basically to kill us, injure us, and cause our properties to get damaged and cause insurers to be unable to write insurance. There's not a future where we can outrun climate change by just raising insurance prices and deregulating insurance. I mean, that's Florida, right? They've done that. You know, prices are four times the national average, and yet the major national insurers are not writing insurance in Florida. Why? Because the risk of severe hurricanes has risen to such a point that they know they can't make money there. And that is our future. We're not where Florida is just yet, but that's where we're all going if we don't address the underlying driver, which is climate change.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

So before we close, Dave, let's think about the future. We got two futures here, right? There's the future where, let's say we don't do all the brilliant ideas you've come up with. What does the world look like?

[Dave Jones]

So that's going to fall hardest, of course, on low and moderate income people. So younger people who are trying to get into the housing market for the first time won't be able to get into the housing market. People that might be in the housing market, but their hold on the housing market is tenuous, will lose their grip because they can't afford insurance. It's not a good future. And then when, when the inevitable happens and the wildfire occurs, or the hurricane or the tornado, or the hail, or, you know, pick your peril, right? Then people won't have the insurance they need to recover from that. And then that has economic consequences as well. It's a very bad future. And it's not one we want.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

So, you know, people might be like, oh, insurance, climate change, niche issue, maybe it affects those people in California. But like you're basically saying, nah, systemic risk, large scale consequences, people won't be able to buy homes.

[Dave Jones]

We've talked about a number of things that could be done to try to forestall that future. At a minimum, if those things are done, it will help bend the curve with regard to temperature rise and make our future far more sustainable and make it more likely that insurance will be affordable and available and that all these other bad things that I've talked about are less likely to occur. And we're really at a fork in the road at this point.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

So the world will look a lot better, shockingly, if we take on the climate crisis and we get insurance companies to help us to help hold fossil fuel companies accountable. You know, that makes the world fairer and allows people to afford their homes and their insurance and we can have a system that protects people.

[Dave Jones]

What people need to do is to make the connection. It's one thing to be mad at the insurance company. Ultimately what's happening is the background risk and the magnitude of losses are going up because of climate change. And if you just focus on the symptoms, which is the insurance price and the insurance availability, you lose sight of what fundamentally is causing this problem and what we need to do to solve the problem.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

It is fossil fuel companies who lied about how pollution would lead to climate change for decades. Who knew this insurance crisis was going to come. Right. These things were knowable and people who made money off of the problem that really is the underlying cause of this issue. And those are the companies that need to be held accountable.

[Mary Knoff]

Hi, my name is Mary Knoff and I'm a producer on Boiling Point. We are here with Joanne o' Neill, Director of Customer Customer Programs at Clean Power Alliance. Hi Joanne.

[Joanne O'Neill]

Hello.

[Mary Knoff]

Clean Power alliance offers many customer programs to save on electricity bills and conserve energy. What is Power Response? How can listeners participate and are there any incentives for signing up?

[Joanne O'Neill]

Yeah. So CPA offers various energy and cost savings programs to its customers. One of these programs is Power Response where participants can earn money for saving energy when energy demand is higher than expected. By saving energy and earning money during these events, Power Response program helps increase the reliability of the power grid and lowers greenhouse gas emissions in the local community.

[Mary Knoff]

Well, thank you so much, Joanne.

[Joanne O'Neill]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Mary Knoff]

Take the next step in building a more resilient and clean energy future for Southern California. To learn more, please visit CleanPowerAlliance.org PowerResponse Again, that's CleanPowerAlliance.org Powerresponse.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

At the top of the episode, Dave called insurance the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the climate crisis. And I think he's right. The failures of the insurance system, it's going to give us a sneak peek of what our future could look like.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Hearing Dave lay all this out, I start to feel this like, visceral reaction. You can feel the insecurity that this situation is creating for more and more people and also for our economy and our society overall.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

The system that we have right now is transferring more and more of the risks and the harms from climate change directly onto everyday people, directly onto consumers.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

The services that in the past we relied on to recover from these events, to rebuild our homes and our communities. That is all being thrown into question as catastrophic climate events happen more and more frequently, more intensely and to more people.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

And there was one thing that really stayed with me after this conversation with Dave, which is that this dynamic around insurance could mean that everyday Americans, everyday people, will not be able to own their homes to the same extent because they won't be able to insure them. And as a result, they can't get mortgages. And that just stunned me when I think about what that means for inequality in this country.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

You know, Leah, I think about, for all of its shortcomings, the idea of the American dream, the idea really of freedom and how much that is intertwined with the ability to have a home, right? A place to live, to have your family, to make memories, to have some financial stability for the future.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

A home is the largest financial asset that most families have. And in many ways it's the foundation of economic and social mobility in this country.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

To own a home without taking on wild amounts of risk, certainly untenable for most people. You have to be able to insure it. And as Dave said, you can't get a mortgage without insurance, so you can't buy a house without insurance.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

This is just one way that climate change is ripping the rug out from underneath everyday people.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

And of course, the climate challenges for insurance don't end at property and home insurance. You can think about crop insurance for farmers, the implications for health insurance from just heat related illness alone. Think about life insurance. As climate driven shifts take more lives, you really start to see what a mess the insurance industry is in, and thus what a mess frankly, we're all in.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

But as Dave said, it doesn't have to be this way. There is an alternative future, a better future. It starts with folks talking about their experiences, getting dropped from their insurance, not getting recognized for their efforts to harden their home, or not getting enough money to rebuild because that will build the public support necessary to pass these transformative laws like SB222, which Dave talked about.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

And in parallel, we've got to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for all the damage they've caused. It is possible for us to have an insurable future, one where people, our homes, our communities are protected from the climate crisis and when these inevitable impacts hit, we have a chance to rebuild our lives.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

A Matter of Degrees is co hosted.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

By me, Dr. Leah Stokes and me, Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

We are a production made in partnership with the 2035 Initiative at UC Santa Barbara and the All We Can Save project.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Thanks to our funders and supporters who make this show possible, including the 11th Hour Project.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

If you're taking the show, please hop on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five star rating or leave us a review.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Script writing, fact checking, communication and production support are by Lucas Boyd, Quinn Lewis, Kristen Palmstrom and Anusha Singh same. Samir Sangupta is our editor and sound designer.

[Dr. Leah Stokes]

Rose Wong designed our show. Art Sean Marquan composed our theme song. Additional music came from Blue Dot sessions. You can find us [e-mail] and on YouTube.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

And stay tuned for more stories for the climate Curious Bring on the Lawsuit Extravaganza.

[Unknown]

Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17 year old cradles her newborn son in her arms.

[Mary Knoff]

They all saw how much I loved him. They didn't have to take him from me.

[Unknown]

Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families shipped their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption in hidden corners across America. It's still happening.

[Dave Jones]

My parents had me locked up in.

[Mary Knoff]

The godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me.

[Unknown]

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men, emboldened by their faith, determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kate Cagle]

The destruction is nearly incomprehensible unless you see it for yourself.

[Dave Jones]

I found that my house was gone as well as every house on my block.

[Kate Cagle]

How could this have happened? And where do we go from here? LA is rebuilding. There is no doubt about that. Less clear is how we know, the.

[Unknown]

Faster we can rebuild, the faster we can heal.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

There are kind of two separate conversations.

[Dave Jones]

At a high level that I don't.

[Dr. Kathryn Wilkinson]

Think we're having, that we could have in this rush to kind of build things back as they were.

[Kate Cagle]

I'm Kate Cagle, host of the new podcast Rebuilding LA from LA Times Studios. We will try to answer some of these questions as we assess the path forward. Rebuilding LA launches June 11. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.