Climate Risk and the Shifting Insurance Landscape

Climate risk is upending the insurance system, and North Carolina is a proving ground for how that plays out. Hurricane Helene exposed a brutal reality: fewer than 2.5% of Western North Carolina residents held flood insurance, leaving entire communities unable to rebuild. Mainstream insurers are abandoning high-risk areas entirely, forcing desperate homeowners into underfunded state programs never designed for this scale of disaster. But startups are fighting back with parametric insurance that pays out automatically, nature-based solutions like living shorelines, and AI-powered flood prediction models. The path forward demands radical insurance reform, massive infrastructure investments, and entirely new business models that let communities stay in place while dramatically reducing vulnerability. The question isn't whether we can adapt, it's whether we'll move fast enough.