How local homeowners insurance market stress impacts urban and suburban housing markets

Climate Change Climate Disasters & Environment Climate Policy

气候变化 气候灾害与环境 气候政策

The geography of homeowners insurance stress within metropolitan areas is more complicated—and more urban—than the conventional climate risk narrative suggests, Matthew E.

Matthew E. 表示，大都市地区房主保险压力的地理分布比传统气候风险叙述所暗示的更为复杂，也更加城市化。

Kahn and Wesley A.

卡恩和韦斯利 A.

Miller of the University of Southern California find.

南加州大学的米勒发现。

The authors construct a Local Insurance Strain Index, or LISI, using ZIP code-level data for 2018 through 2022.

作者使用 2018 年至 2022 年的邮政编码级数据构建了本地保险应变指数 (LISI)。

The index combines three measures of stress in the homeowners insurance market: affordability, measured by premiums relative to homeowner income; availability, measured by insurer nonrenewal rates; and insurer profitability, measured by paid losses relative to premiums.

该指数结合了房主保险市场的三个压力指标：负担能力，以相对于房主收入的保费来衡量；可用性，以保险公司不续保率衡量；保险公司的盈利能力，通过相对于保费的已付损失来衡量。

The data, drawn principally from the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office, cover roughly 70% of U.S. ZIP Code Tabulation Areas and 87% of the population.

这些数据主要来自财政部联邦保险办公室，覆盖了美国大约 70% 的邮政编码区域和 87% 的人口。

At the national level, the familiar story holds: ZIP codes exposed to hazards such as wildfires, tornadoes, and flooding tend to have higher premiums relative to income and more difficulty retaining coverage.

在国家层面上，有一个熟悉的故事：遭受野火、龙卷风和洪水等灾害影响的邮政编码区的保费相对于收入而言往往较高，并且更难以保留承保范围。

The authors then look beyond that to compare neighborhoods within the same metropolitan area.

然后，作者超越了这一点，对同一大都市区内的社区进行了比较。

Environmental risk tends to increase as one moves away from a metropolitan area’s central business district.

随着人们远离大都市区的中央商务区，环境风险往往会增加。

By contrast, homeowners insurance strain is highest in the urban core, falls sharply over the first five miles from downtown, and then levels off across suburban areas.

相比之下，房主保险压力在城市核心区最高，在距市中心前五英里范围内急剧下降，然后在郊区趋于平稳。

Simply put, city homeowners often face the greatest insurance burden even though they live in the parts of metropolitan areas with the lowest measured exposure to natural hazards.

简而言之，城市房主往往面临最大的保险负担，即使他们居住在大都市地区受自然灾害影响最低的地区。

The magnitude of the urban insurance penalty is substantial.

城市保险罚款的数额很大。

Within the same metropolitan area, homeowners in ZIP codes near the central business district face nonrenewal rates about 20% higher than those in suburban ZIP codes more than five miles from downtown.

在同一大都市区内，靠近中央商务区的邮政编码区的房主面临的不续约率比距离市中心超过 5 英里的郊区邮政编码区的房主高出约 20%。

Their average homeowners insurance premiums are 39% higher.

他们的平均房主保险费高出 39%。

These differences are not explained by unusually high profits for insurers in city neighborhoods.

这些差异并不能用城市社区保险公司异常高的利润来解释。

The authors find that insurers’ paid-loss ratios are broadly similar in urban and suburban ZIP codes.

作者发现，城市和郊区邮政编码地区的保险公司的赔付率大致相似。

Higher urban premiums appear to accompany higher losses, rather than reflecting rent extraction by insurers.

较高的城市保费似乎伴随着较高的损失，而不是反映保险公司提取的租金。

Why might it cost more to insure homes in relatively low-hazard urban neighborhoods?

为什么在危险相对较低的城市社区为房屋投保的费用可能会更高？

The paper points to risks that are not usually central to the climate-insurance debate.

该论文指出了通常不是气候保险争论核心的风险。

Theft and burglary are more common in dense environments.

盗窃和入室盗窃在人口稠密的环境中更为常见。

Older housing stock may produce more claims involving plumbing, appliances, and other building systems.

较旧的住房可能会产生更多涉及管道、电器和其他建筑系统的索赔。

Repairing urban homes can also be especially expensive because of higher labor and materials costs, building-code requirements, and the complexity of repairing older structures.

由于劳动力和材料成本较高、建筑规范要求以及修复旧建筑的复杂性，修复城市房屋也可能特别昂贵。

The institutional design of insurance markets may amplify this difference.

保险市场的制度设计可能会放大这种差异。

In many disaster-prone areas, government-supported programs absorb some of the most consequential catastrophe risks.

在许多灾害多发地区，政府支持的计划吸收了一些最严重的灾难风险。

The federal National Flood Insurance Program, state windstorm pools, and state FAIR Plans can remove or reduce the private market’s exposure to flood, wind, wildfire, or other environmental perils.

联邦国家洪水保险计划、州风暴池和州公平计划可以消除或减少私人市场遭受洪水、风、野火或其他环境危险的风险。

These arrangements are particularly important in some suburban and peripheral communities, including wildfire-exposed areas of California and coastal parts of Texas and Florida.

这些安排在一些郊区和周边社区尤其重要，包括加利福尼亚州的野火地区以及德克萨斯州和佛罗里达州的沿海地区。

Urban homeowners, however, generally do not have comparable public backstops for the non-environmental risks associated with density, older buildings, crime, and high repair costs.

然而，城市房主通常没有类似的公共支持来应对与密度、旧建筑、犯罪和高维修成本相关的非环境风险。

The result is an asymmetry: Public policy often helps spread the cost of geographically concentrated catastrophe risks, while the risks that contribute to high insurance costs in cities remain largely within the private homeowners market.

其结果是一种不对称：公共政策往往有助于分散地理上集中的巨灾风险的成本，而导致城市高保险成本的风险仍然主要存在于私人房主市场中。

The paper also examines whether local insurance strain is reflected in housing markets.

该文件还研究了当地保险压力是否反映在房地产市场上。

The authors find strong evidence that it is.

作者发现了强有力的证据证明确实如此。

In ZIP codes for which both home price and rent data are available, a one-standard-deviation increase in insurance strain is associated with a 10.6% decline in single-family home prices and a 3.1% decline in multifamily rents.

在可获取房价和租金数据的邮政编码中，保险压力增加一个标准差与单户住宅价格下降 10.6% 和多户型租金下降 3.1% 相关。

The ratio of home prices to rents falls by 7.5%.

房价与租金之比下降7.5%。

These estimates are associations, not proof that a change in insurance strain alone causes a particular change in housing prices or rents.

这些估计只是关联，并不能证明保险压力的变化本身会导致房价或租金的特定变化。

Insurance strain may itself reflect local conditions—such as crime, building quality, or environmental disamenities—that also affect demand for housing.

保险压力本身可能反映了当地的条件，例如犯罪、建筑质量或环境缺陷，这些条件也会影响住房需求。

Still, the pattern is consistent with two related mechanisms.

尽管如此，该模式与两个相关机制是一致的。

First, higher premiums and less available coverage raise the cost and uncertainty of homeownership, reducing what potential buyers are willing to pay for single family homes.

首先，更高的保费和更少的可用保险增加了住房所有权的成本和不确定性，减少了潜在买家愿意为单户住宅支付的费用。

Second, the local conditions generating insurance claims may make an area less desirable for both owners and renters.

其次，产生保险索赔的当地条件可能会使某个地区不太适合业主和租户。

The relationship is especially pronounced near downtown.

这种关系在市中心附近尤其明显。

At the central business district, a one-standard-deviation increase in insurance strain is associated with a 19.1% decline in single-family home prices and a 6.2% decline in multifamily rents.

在中央商务区，保险压力每增加一个标准差，单户住宅价格下降 19.1%，多户租金下降 6.2%。

These relationships diminish with distance from the urban core and are close to zero by roughly 30 miles from downtown.

这些关系随着距城市核心的距离而减弱，距市中心约 30 英里时接近于零。

Thus, insurance stress is not only more concentrated in urban neighborhoods; its apparent housing-market consequences are concentrated there as well.

因此，保险压力不仅更集中在城市社区；它对房地产市场的明显影响也集中在那里。

The authors’ findings reframe the homeowners insurance crisis as a within-metro phenomenon.

作者的研究结果将房主保险危机重新定义为地铁内的现象。

Much public attention has focused on catastrophe risk in environmentally exposed regions, but a substantial share of homeowners insurance losses comes from non-environmental perils that concentrate in urban cores.

公众的大部分注意力都集中在环境暴露地区的巨灾风险上，但房主保险损失的很大一部分来自集中在城市核心的非环境灾害。

Efforts aimed at reducing urban housing affordability burdens should account for insurance affordability and availability when considering familiar policy approaches (e.g., rate regulation, residual-market expansion, and zoning), the authors say; the cost of insuring urban property is shaped by local conditions (e.g., crime, building stock, infrastructure, liability environment) that often lie outside the conventional scope of insurance policy.

作者表示，在考虑熟悉的政策方法（例如利率监管、剩余市场扩张和分区）时，旨在减轻城市住房负担能力负担的努力应考虑保险的负担能力和可用性；城市财产的保险成本取决于当地条件（例如犯罪、建筑存量、基础设施、责任环境），这些条件往往超出了传统的保险范围。