Compound Climate Shocks and Insurance Withdrawal Across Vulnerable Housing Markets
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: This analysis examines whether declared climate hazards are associated with residential insurer withdrawal, addressing international debates over exposure and insurance availability. California insurance records and OpenFEMA declarations form a balanced panel of 290 observations across 58 counties during 2016 to 2020. Ordinary least squares models include county and year fixed effects, with standard errors clustered by county. An additional fire incident corresponds to a withdrawal change of negative 0.008 percentage points, compared with positive 0.041 for a flood or severe storm incident. Annual hazard co-occurrence corresponds to negative 0.331 percentage points. All confidence intervals include zero, providing no statistical support for the proposed positive associations. This assessment persists under an alternative denominator and exclusion of the final year, although the fire coefficient changes direction. The findings qualify the assumption that recorded hazard exposure translates directly into insurance contraction without identifying causal transmission channels. The contribution separates administrative exposure measures from observed supply adjustment. Insurance monitoring should therefore integrate direct retention records, consistent classifications, and sensitivity checks rather than infer withdrawal from declarations alone.
Author: Kannan Vishwanath & Lloyd Zulu
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225000184