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Why the CAT bond market is booming right now

Mar 13, 2024
They're called CAT — for catastrophe — bonds, and insurers and investors can't get enough of them.
If disaster does strike, CAT bond investors could potentially lose the principal, interest or both. Above, destroyed homes and storm debris in Florida after Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images

SEC adopts rule making companies disclose climate risks

Mar 7, 2024
The rules are softer than those initially proposed.
New SEC rules are intended to standardize reporting requirements on things like emissions and exposure to climate change-related disasters.
Giles Clarke/Getty Images

Flood insurance program updates hit homeowners hard

May 16, 2023
In some counties, the rates for property owners have increased on average more than 600 percent.
The federal government's flood insurance program is now more accurate in its risk assessment. That's affecting the price of buying insurance for many homeowners.
David Greedy/Getty Images

Hurricane risk will grow in the coming decades, report warns

Mar 1, 2023
A new tool shows the likelihood of wind damage by property address.
Cleared lots were all that remained of some homes in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, in late January, months after Hurricane Ian ravaged the area.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

How aid is getting to earthquake-affected Turkey and Syria

Inside the partnerships getting essential aid and care to those impacted by the recent earthquake.
Mehmet Kacmaz/Getty Images

How a Buffalo business weathered a record-breaking storm

Jan 19, 2023
Inventory loss “could have been a lot worse,” said Johanna Dominguez of Put a Plant on It. But merchants suffered as shoppers stayed home.
Vehicles sit buried in snow and abandoned in downtown Buffalo, New York, the day after Christmas. The storm's cost surpassed $1 billion.
Joed Viera/AFP via Getty Images

Wildfires are more frequent, getting worse — and straining government budgets

Dec 12, 2022
Federal spending by the two main agencies that manage wildfires has doubled in the last decade, Pew found. States are spending more too.
A fire burns east of Eugene, Oregon, in September 2020. Pew researcher Colin Foard pointed out that the state of Washington's average annual spending on wildfires more than tripled during the 2010s.
Tyee Burwell/AFP via Getty Images

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Southwest Florida had an affordable housing shortage. Hurricane Ian made it worse.

Nov 22, 2022
Lee County in Southwest Florida, where the storm made landfall, still faces monumental challenges housing people displaced by the storm.
About a month after Hurricane Ian made landfall near Fort Myers, piles of debris lined the streets. "That has all of their drywall, carpeting, all their cabinets, beds and everything," said Gladys Cook at the Florida Housing Coalition. "There’s thousands of people in that situation.”
Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace

Florida cultural institutions are recovering from Hurricane Ian alongside homes and businesses

Nov 7, 2022
Damage along Florida's southwest coast includes museums and theaters that plan to rebuild.
The Venice Theatre suffered major damage from Hurricane Ian's winds and heavy rain, leaving collapsed walls and flooding in the main stage area at the rear of the building, which was built in 1926.
Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace

Ian's catastrophic damage in Florida falls on an insurance market in turmoil

Sep 29, 2022
The storm could cause more than $30 billion in property losses at a time when insurance companies in the state are losing money.
Hurricane Ian may be one of the costliest storms in U.S. history. Above, debris in Fort Myers Beach, Florida.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images