The idea of an uninsurable world is becoming less theoretical and closer to reality. Across the United States, insurers are nonrenewing policies, raising premiums and sometimes withdrawing from regions completely at a pace that is reshaping markets.
Climate change is at the forefront of evolving risk. According to the UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) 2025 Emissions Gap Report, global warming projections over this century sit at 2.3 to 2.5 degrees Celcius. This marks a slight decline from the 2.6 to 2.8 degrees Celcius predicted in the UNEP's 2024 report, but they note that 0.1 degree Celcius of improvement can be attributed to methodological updates. The UNEP also predicted the United States' impending withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, which came to fruition in January 2026, would cancel another 0.1 degrees of progress.
Increasing global temperatures drive the secondary perils that threaten insurance carriers' bottom lines, and the UNEP's outlook doesn't bode well for improvement in the future.
According to Swiss Re, insured losses hit $107 billion globally in 2025, with a record 92% of those losses caused by secondary perils such as wildfires, severe convective storms and floods. They predict that long-term insured losses from natural disasters will continue to follow their current 5% to 7% annual growth rate, which will force insurance companies to adapt in order to maintain longevity and prevent coverage gaps.
Many customers in the U.S. have already come face-to-face with what it means to be "uninsurable" as companies pull out of or limit coverage in markets like California and Florida that carry the highest risk of CAT events, forcing them to scramble for coverage.
Though many Americans are being bogged down by insurance stress, Donald Trump's administration is only exacerbating the problem through regulation rollbacks and other climate-unfriendly decisions.
At a White House event in February, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the repeal of the EPA's 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, as well as all federal greenhouse gas emission standards for light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles and engines.
This administration has also rolled back funding for research operations like the NOAA. From 1980 to 2024, the NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information maintained running data about weather and climate disasters in the U.S. that caused more than $1 billion in losses, including severe storms, wildfires, winter storms, freezes and droughts. For more than four decades, this database served as a valuable tool for researchers, scientists, journalists and professionals in climate-reliant industries like insurance. While data from 2024 and earlier remains available, these cuts from the Trump administration ended any further updates to this valuable resource.
Trump's 2027 budget proposal would also cut EPA funding by more than half, lowering its operating budget to $4.2 billion, which is the lowest it has been since the Reagan administration. These suggested cuts would eliminate the EPA's environmental justice program, the Atmospheric Protection Program and Diesel Emissions Reduction Act grants.
The president's annual spending request also says it will put "an end to unrestrained research grants, woke environmental justice work, radical climate research, and skewed, overly-precautionary modeling that infuences [sic] regulations—none of which are authorized by law."
The choices this administration is making about the environment do not address the underlying problems of climate change, but rather write these concerns off as "radical" and "woke." However, research and statistics on natural catastrophes and insured losses demonstrate that no matter what adjectives the president decides to throw in front of his constituents' concerns, they remain based in reality.
The Trump Administration's environmental rollbacks do absolutely nothing to protect insurance carriers or customers, and show no concern for the fact that more and more areas are becoming difficult for insurance companies to take on due to the risk of CAT events. Insurance carriers are no strangers to political influence and lobbying, and as major players in the U.S. economy, it's time they not only speak out against this administration's harmful decisions, but also consider whether candidates and parties they contribute financially to in the future are acting in their and their customers' best interests concerning our fragile environment.
(Photo credit: Sepp photography/Shutterstock)
Opinions are the author's own.
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