Rising insurance rates could cost people their homes, report warns

By Avery Ellfeldt | 06/20/2024 06:07 AM EDT

A Harvard study says low- and middle-income residents are struggling to afford property insurance and could face eviction or foreclosure.

Wildfires such as this blaze in California are destroying homes and causing property insurers to raise rates.

Wildfires such as this blaze in California are destroying homes and causing property insurers to raise rates. A Harvard study says property coverage is becoming unaffordable for millions of U.S. residents. Noah Berger/AP

A Harvard report Thursday warns that housing is becoming less affordable for low- and middle-income people due in part to rising property insurance rates, which jumped 21 percent on average from 2022 to 2023.

Some families could face eviction or foreclosure, a report author said.

Both insurance and homeownership are “becoming completely unaffordable and unattainable to large swaths of the American population,” said Carlos Martín, a director within the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, which publishes annual reports on U.S. housing markets.

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Property insurance and costs such as rents have risen so sharply that a record 12 million rental households were considered “severely cost-burdened” in 2022, the Harvard report says. That’s an additional 1.5 million households spending more than half their income on housing since before the coronavirus pandemic.

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