Opening up uncertainty

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Editor’s note: This story was in collaboration with the Cape and Islands NPR station CAI, and reporter Eve Zuckoff. It is the latest in a series of articles pursued to understand the impacts of climate change and the threats they pose to our way of life. CAI is airing a complementary piece live on air and on its website, www.capeandislands.org.

The letter from the home insurance company looked the same as it always did when Robert Fynbo brought it home with the rest of his mail a few months ago — the pale, nondescript envelope revealed a yearly renewal notice, but unlike other years, the message he saw transported him to a very different time in his life. 

Fynbo is 65 years old now, but said reading this year’s insurance letter sent him back to a moment from his childhood. He remembered being 8 years old, when his family’s farm in southern Minnesota was destroyed after a tornado devastated their town. The loss of everything — his home, his toys, and a physical sense of place — was etched deep in his memory.

“All of a sudden, everything that I knew was gone. My toys, my clothes, there was nothing left. And that feeling of helplessness in the situation came right back from this. It was just like it,” Fynbo said.

Back then, his parents decided against a rebuild, and moved instead to a modest house on a small Island called Chappaquiddick, off of Martha’s Vineyard. 

Fynbo was raised in that house until 1986, when he excitedly bought the home from his mother. He remodeled it himself, and raised his own family within the comfort of its walls. To him, it wasn’t just another Chappaquiddick property, it’s the container that held his whole life.

As he sat in that same house fifty-nine years later, he couldn’t believe what he was reading from the renewal notice: he didn’t see the usual 5 or 10 percent markup on his insurance premium. Instead, he was quoted a more than 360 percent increase. 

The $11,900 premium on the page — a jump from $3,200 he had been paying — prompted a reaction that wasn’t just a response to the price hike. Fynbo was worried about his ability to retire after a lifetime of service to his community. He had spent decades as the first Wi-Fi operator on Chappy, and one of its few EMTs. Home insurance costs are the only reason he has continued to work this year. If prices continue to rise in this way, he says, he may not be able to afford to live on the Island anymore. 

And he’s not the only one.

Across the Island, locals like Fynbo say they, too, have been hit with high insurance premiums. According to local insurance agents, this is an unprecedented trend, and they say they’re as shocked as their clients. Paula O’Connor, vice president of Mone Insurance, said this year, costs are worse than she’s ever seen. “We never experienced this before,” she told The Times. “I’ve been doing this for 35 years … I’ve never seen anything like it.”

These premium increases have been seen across areas of the country that are most vulnerable to global climate change, which scientific consensus says is fueled by manmade greenhouse gases that trap the sun’s heat and disrupt usual weather patterns. With damage done by natural disasters across the country — like the hurricanes in Florida and wildfires in California — costs are rising for everyone. 

But Vineyard residents are seeing perhaps the worst of it. As part of an informal survey produced by The MV Times earlier this year, a quarter of the approximately 300 respondents said their insurance premiums increased by more than 50 percent in recent years, while only 2 percent said their insurance had not increased. 

And it isn’t just the price of insurance that has made it difficult for Islanders. Finding an actual provider that will cover homes here has grown harder.

According to a report from a U.S. Senate advisory committee, Dukes County had one of the highest insurance non-renewal rates in the country in 2023. About one in 10 Islanders were non-renewed by their home insurance. Climate variability in the area has many large insurance companies spooked. With more natural disasters nationwide, they worry about a major storm hitting the Island. The Vineyard hasn’t seen a named storm since Hurricane Bob in 1991, and insurance companies expect it.

Recently, Plymouth Rock Assurance, Narragansett Bay, and numerous other companies have decided not to cover homes here after decades of doing so. Even USAA, the insurance guaranteed for veterans, has avoided covering homes on the Island. Three separate Islanders, in comments to The Times, have cited rejections or extremely high quotes from USAA, even though they are veterans. 

As coverage gets slashed and homeowners are left to pick up the pieces, many locals feel powerless in the face of large corporations. “I feel like we’re being horrifically taken advantage of by the companies,” Fynbo said. 

Edgartown resident David Nash shares Fynbo’s frustration. His insurance was non-renewed once in 2015, and was canceled by another company in recent years. He said Bunker Hill Insurance canceled him because they decided not to cover hurricane-prone areas in general. 

While Nash is frustrated with insurance providers, he also understands the role climate change is playing. “I’ve always been aware of climate change, and I understand what’s happening,” he said.

Nash worked in the environmental field for years, as the solid and hazardous waste program director for the state of Connecticut. He moved to the Island in 1995 to retire, and has been navigating the home insurance market here ever since. “Way back, they kept telling us that, Well, you know, we’re overdue for a storm. We’re going to have that hurricane. Of course, it hasn’t come in a long time,” Nash said. 

He said he’d rather these larger companies update their strategies for coverage, instead of canceling policies in areas more prone to disaster. “If [insurance companies] were to revisit anything, it’s to get some balance to how insurance rates are determined across the country, instead of just telling us these little stories every time the rates go up. We understand that it’s a big issue, and it’s not just climate change. It’s a lot of things that factor in,” Nash explained.

With the growing turbulence of the insurance market in recent years, federal and local lawmakers are starting to take notice. 

Cape and Islands state Sen. Julian Cyr, who has heard from his constituents on the issue, said that part of the problem comes back to rising housing costs in the region. Coupled with inflation and higher building costs, the increased property values indicate to insurers that fixing damages will be more expensive. And the more expensive a home is, the more it costs to insure.

But Cyr also notes that the system in place is decades old, and requires updating. He filed legislation in January that is intended to foster a competitive private insurance market. The bill, if it becomes law, will require set rules for policy cancellation, non-renewal notices, and conditions for lending institutions to notify borrowers about flood risks.

“We need to ensure that we have a fair and robust insurance market in Massachusetts that is not taking advantage of consumers,” Cyr said. “But this problem is larger than just the insurance market, and is also being driven by a human-made climate crisis that we have been slow to address from a national and a global perspective.”

While it has its faults, one existing solution for homeowners is to turn to the state. Left with few other choices, many have opted for the Massachusetts Property Insurance Underwriters Association (MPIUA), otherwise known as the Massachusetts FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements) Plan. 

Islanders and Cape Codders are turning to the FAIR plan at more than double the rate of the rest of the state. According to Cyr, 36.6 percent of homeowners on the Cape and Islands rely on the FAIR Plan, compared with about 15 percent for the rest of the state.

But the cost of the FAIR Plan is not necessarily lower, and some have said their insurance is worse, citing less “named storm,” flood, or wind damage coverage. According to Frank O’Brien, general counsel and vice president of MPIUA, the average insurance rate for Massachusetts residents sits at $2,540 a year, which means many Islanders are already seeing higher rates than the rest of the state, even without the recent cost increases. 

The FAIR Plan also has a $1 million cap on the cost of rebuilding, which leaves many whose houses exceed that number underinsured. 

For some Islanders, adjusting their coverage is their way of dealing with the rising costs. Some are forgoing insurance completely. Peter McGhee, a Chilmark homeowner, has decided to forgo “named storm” coverage in order to keep his insurance costs lower. 

McGhee, now 90 years old, moved to the Island in 1938 with his family when he was just 4 years old, and has witnessed many natural disasters come and go. He’s observed the way his house has endured climate events, and has weighed experience against cost. 

“A big part of the premium was hurricane risk,” McGhee theorized. His payment dropped thousands of dollars when he changed his coverage. 

But now, he’s not covered for the top event experts predict will cause the most damage to Island homes. If there are high winds that blow a tree over into his home, for example, he’ll have to cover the cost of repairs himself. That’s a risk he’s willing to take. “I don’t know that skipping this insurance is a good idea for everyone, but it works for me,” McGhee said. 

For other Islanders, the prospect of paying for repairs out-of-pocket is not an option.

Edgartown resident Deborah Mello Orazem said she changed insurance companies after she opened a renewal notice. With the torn envelope in her hands, she saw a number that opened up a devastating possibility — having to sell her house and move. 

Orazem bought her first house on Martha’s Vineyard at age 19. She was still in college, her life ahead of her, and had fallen in love with an Islander who spoke highly of his hometown. “He was absolutely convinced that we needed to live here. So we did,” she recalled, her gaze softening at the memory. 

Soon after, she understood why. The Vineyard, in all its uniqueness and comradery, became her home. She got a job as a teacher — alternating between the Edgartown and Tisbury schools. For 27 years, she taught young Vineyarders how to read, write, and exist in an ever-changing world. Orazem said she is still approached by past students — remembering their kind words to her immediately beamed a smile across her face. 

A few years after her first house purchase, she and her husband decided they were due for a change. They sold the original house, and bought another, opting for a smaller home in 1975. Home insurance, she noted, was just another bill at the time. In 1975, she estimated that she paid around $200 to $400 a year to insure her home. 

Now she has a fixed income after retiring. Orazem said she usually pays the entire insurance plan up front, and she never expected for it to be more than a yearly thought in her mind. She has never had a claim or a late payment in the decades she’s had insurance. She played by the rules. 

Then she was non-renewed this September, and said it felt like a crushing blow. The notice was sent to her in the same nondescript envelope that Fynbo and many others have received. But the contents were anything but the run-of-the-mill message she was expecting. She reached out to her local agent, who said her best offer for insurance at that time was a Lloyd’s of London plan for $9,000 a year. 

She decided to switch to the Massachusetts FAIR Plan for half that cost, but said her coverage is notably lower. The FAIR Plan doesn’t cover the total rebuild of her house, so she’s at a loss if anything happens. 

“I felt like, Wow, I’ve never misbehaved — I was like the perfect customer. They’ve just been taking my money all these years. I couldn’t understand. I think at first I felt, you know, targeted, but then I heard it happened to everybody else,” Orazem stated.