Huge Panhandle Fires Reveal A Sad Reality: 26% Of Rural TX Residents Don't Have House Insurance

[hatrack]

Many Panhandle residents whose dwellings and possessions burned in the region’s ongoing wildfires may never financially recover for one simple reason: Their homes weren’t insured. “A lot of the people who have lost a home had no insurance,” Governor Greg Abbott said at a March 1 press conference. “So there are a lot of people in great need right now.”

Texans pay some of the highest homeowners insurance premiums in the country. Increased risk of extreme weather events, at least partially driven by climate change, have driven up those costs. Growth in homeowners insurance rates here outpaced the rest of the nation last year, straining Texans’ ability to pay. In Texas, those without insurance are also more likely to be those who have a harder time recovering from disaster: lower-income households and rural residents. That means Texans without insurance face a steep — if not impossible — path to restore what financial well-being they had before a disaster strikes.

EDIT
Texas homeowners who go without insurance tend to be lower-income, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data conducted by the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. Homeowners in the state’s rural areas are more likely to not have insurance than their urban counterparts, the analysis found. Some 11 percent of homeowners in the state’s major metropolitan areas don’t have homeowners insurance, whereas about 26 percent of homeowners in rural areas lack it.

EDIT

And homeowners insurance is considered the most clear-cut avenue to seek financial restitution after a major disaster, experts told the Tribune. Going without it means homeowners would have to pay for repairs and rebuilding out of pocket — or rely on assistance from the public and private sectors that may not come. Officials haven’t determined the full scope of the disaster as the fires continue to rage, though it’s believed hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed. The ultimate scale of the damage will determine whether displaced residents and others affected by the wildfires qualify for federal disaster aid under an emergency declaration.

EDIT

https://grist.org/wildfires/many-homes-burned-in-the-texas-wildfires-werent-insured-creating-a-steep-path-to-recovery/

[marble falls]

1. I'm sort of sick and tired of how many Texans expect tax payers to rebuild their houses. Let them get ...

... some FEMA trailers and a good class action law firm and sue the company that admits they started the fire. Next time get insurance.

And for Pete's sake STOP BUILDING ON FLOOD PLAINS.

[modrepub]

2. And They'll Blame Some Far Off Democrat For Their Predicament

instead of their local or state representative. Must be nice to be able to get the folks who you represent to always blame somebody else other than yourself. I guess that's why they've branded themselves as the "party of personal responsibility".

And someone should remind them that we all decided the fossil fuel industry was more important than the insurance/banking industry as far as addressing this little CO2 problem when they bring up the high cost of insuring their assets in a warming more chaotic weather pattern world. That's capitalism folks!