Climate experts create nonprofit to study insurance and housing

By Avery Ellfeldt | 11/04/2024 06:06 AM EST

Insurance for Good unites leading researchers to determine how to keep people housed and insured after major disasters.

Carolyn Kousky, an associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, started the nonprofit Insurance for Good.

Carolyn Kousky, an associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, started the nonprofit Insurance for Good. Courtesy of Carolyn Kousky

The country’s top climate finance experts are joining forces to tackle an increasingly urgent question: How to keep people housed — and insured — as one natural disaster after another devastates communities.

The issue has grown particularly dire in recent years as insurance companies drop coverage and increase premiums in response to increasingly destructive natural disasters, threatening households’ ability to find and pay for coverage — and keep their homes.

But at least so far, research and advocacy around the issue have been “scattered and fractured” at best, said Carolyn Kousky, an associate vice president at Environmental Defense Fund.

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Which is why Kousky, alongside other housing and insurance experts, launched a nonprofit Friday to tackle the issue. Dubbed “Insurance for Good,” the organization aims to serve as a central hub that streamlines related research, information and policy solutions — and facilitates more ambitious work down the line.

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