When the nation’s No. 1 and No. 4 property and casualty insurance companies – State Farm and Allstate – confirmed that they would stop issuing new home insurance policies in California, it may have been a shock but shouldn’t have been a surprise. It’s a trend Florida and other hurricane- and flood-prone states know well.

Insurers have been retreating from high-risk, high-loss markets for years after catastrophic events. Hurricane Andrew’s unprecedented US$16 billion in insured losses across Florida in 1992 set off alarm bells. Multibillion-dollar disasters since then have left several insurers insolvent and pushed many others to reevaluate what they’re willing to insure.

I co-direct the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security at Arizona State University, where I study disaster losses and manage the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses database (SHELDUS). As losses from natural hazards steadily increase, research shows it’s not a question of if insurance will become unavailable or unaffordable in high-risk areas – it’s a question of when.

Reinsurers are worried

Insurance is a vehicle to transfer risk. When an individual buys an insurance policy, that person pays to transfer the risk of expensive repairs to the insurer if the home is damaged by a covered event, like a fire or thunderstorm. Most policyholders don’t experience major disasters, so insurance companies make money.

However, disasters are extremely costly when they do occur, so insurers also buy their own insurance, called reinsurance.

Reinsurance costs have been rising fast in response to expensive disasters around the world in recent years. Reinsurers’ risk-adjusted property-catastrophe prices rose 33% on average at their June 1, 2023, renewal, after a 25% rise in 2022, according to reinsurance broker Howden Tiger’s analysis.

If prices are too high and insurers can no longer transfer excessive risk to the reinsurance market, they are stuck “holding the risk” – meaning the cost of claims when disasters strike. A big enough disaster can put insurance companies out of business, or they can decide to leave the state, as seen in California, Louisiana and elsewhere.

Responsible insurers are not in the business of gambling, so they do what State Farm and Allstate did: They reevaluate their portfolios – the various lines of insurance they offer, such as auto, life, property insurance and health insurance – and their prices. Insurance is a highly data-driven business and uses some of the most sophisticated climate and risk modeling in the world to forecast future risks, including the likelihood a property will be damaged by wildfire or other natural hazards.

State Farm cited “catastrophe exposure” as a reason for ending new high-risk personal and commercial property and casualty policies in California. That refers to the likelihood that costly claims would exceed the risk State Farm was willing to accept.

Why drop only California?

So, why did State Farm and Allstate only stop new policies in California and not in other wildfire-prone states like Colorado or Arizona?

The answer can only be speculative since State Farm or Allstate don’t publicly disclose their exposure. That’s calculated based on how many personal and commercial property and casualty policies the company holds in the state, particularly in the wildland-urban interface where fire risk is higher, and at what value.

State Farm did cite California’s increasing wildfire risk and home construction prices, but there are other influences to consider.

One is state insurance regulations that can limit premium increases, prohibit policy cancellations and require certain levels of coverage. Insurer Chubb’s chief executive mentioned restrictions that left it unable to charge “an adequate price for the risk” as part of the reason for its 2022 decision to not renew policies for expensive homes in high-risk areas of California. California also has a unique “efficient proximate cause” rule that forces property insurers to also cover post-fire flooding, such as mudslides. Rainy winters like 2023’s often trigger destructive mudslides in wildfire burn areas.

What happens now?

When insurers pull out of a community, residents and companies without access to property and casualty insurance are left holding their own risk – and paying the price if a disaster strikes. From a societal and political perspective, that’s a problem.

Residents and businesses without insurance tend to recover more slowly. Uninsured residents often depend on donations, loans or federal individual assistance. The latter, however, is only available for catastrophic disasters and covers only immediate needs.

To fill the gap and provide access to insurance, states including California, Florida, Louisiana and Texas have created either private or public insurance options of last resort with generally very pricey premiums.

Residents covered by these options transfer their risk to the state, such as in Louisiana and Florida – meaning state taxpayers, who fund the state insurance programs, hold the risk directly or indirectly. In California, the privately insured FAIR Plan, in existence since 1968, wrote close to 270,000 policies in 2021, nearly double the number in 2018.

Similarly, anyone purchasing flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program since 1968 is transferring their risk to federal taxpayers. The NFIP currently insures almost $1.3 trillion in value across 5 million policies.

Politicians are not catastrophe risk experts, though, and do not make decisions based on data alone.

In the short term, I expect that insurance pools, as well as federal- and state-run insurers of last resort, will add more policies, and that state legislators will incentivize the return of insurers. But while the political willingness to support such a trend exists, the financial resources do not.

The National Flood Insurance Program has plenty of lessons to teach about the challenges of balancing exposure and keeping premiums affordable: It is more than $20 billion in debt. Texas has resorted to charging insurers operating in the state to help cover its program’s costs.

Fixing insurance starts with the property itself

Despite the risk of properties becoming uninsurable, communities today continue to permit development in floodplains, along coastlines and in the wildfire-prone wildland urban interface. Inadequate building codes allow developers to build homes that cannot withstand severe weather. These practices have placed millions of residents and the things they value in harm’s way.

As climate change continues to dial up the frequency and severity of natural hazards, there are some steps states and communities can take involving property to lower the risk:

• Make smarter land use choices and limit development in high-risk areas to avoid placing people and the things they value in harm’s way.

• Adopt more stringent building codes and safety standards at state and community levels.

• Price risk into home sales, either through an insurance contingency that allows the buyer to withdraw when they cannot secure insurance or lower assessed property values for real estate in high-risk areas, which can dissuade builders and buyers.

• Require comprehensive disclosures of all present and future risks along with historic claims associated with a property to educate potential buyers.

• Make risk information accessible and understandable. My research shows that most people have a hard time fully grasping how likely they are to be affected by a catastrophic event. They need better tools that communicate the information in a way that resonates with them.

• Help residents in high-risk areas relocate through buyouts and managed retreat that returns the land to nature or public uses such as parks.

Melanie Gall, Assistant Professor and Co-Director, Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Watts College, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Media influences and conventional beauty standards have long plagued society.

This issue took on new urgency in May 2023 when the U.S. surgeon general issued a major public advisory over the links between social media and youth mental health.

Research shows that images of beauty as depicted in movies, television and magazines can lead to mental illness, issues with disordered eating and body image dissatisfaction.

These trends have been documented in women and men, in the LGBTQ+ community and in people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Experts have long suspected that social media may be playing a role in the growing mental health crisis in young people. However, the surgeon general’s warning is one of the first public warnings supported by robust research.

Social media can be toxic

Body dissatisfaction among children and adolescents is commonplace and has been linked to decreased quality of life, worsened mood and unhealthy eating habits.

As an eating disorder and anxiety specialist, I regularly work with clients who experience eating disorder symptoms, self-esteem issues and anxiety related to social media.

I also have firsthand experience with this topic: I am 15 years post-recovery from an eating disorder, and I grew up when people were beginning to widely use social media. In my view, the impact of social media on diet and exercise patterns needs to be further researched to inform future policy directions, school programming and therapeutic treatment.

The mental health of adolescents and teens has been declining for the past decade, and the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to worsening youth mental health and brought it into the spotlight. As the mental health crisis surges, researchers have been taking a close look at the role of social media in these increasing mental health concerns.

The pros and cons of social media

About 95% of children and adolescents in the U.S. between the ages of 10 and 17 are using social media almost constantly.

Research has shown that social media can be beneficial for finding community support. However, studies have also shown that the use of social media contributes to social comparisons, unrealistic expectations and negative mental health effects.

In addition, those who have preexisting mental health conditions tend to spend more time on social media. People in that category are more likely to self-objectify and internalize the thin body ideal. Women and people with preexisting body image concerns are more likely to feel worse about their bodies and themselves after they spend time on social media.

A breeding ground for eating disorders

A recent review found that, as with mass media, the use of social media is a risk factor for the development of an eating disorder, body image dissatisfaction and disordered eating. In this review, social media use was shown to contribute to negative self-esteem, social comparisons, decreased emotional regulation and idealized self-presentation that negatively influenced body image.

Another study, called the Dove Self-Esteem Project, published in April 2023, found that 9 in 10 children and adolescents ages 10 to 17 are exposed to toxic beauty content on social media and 1 in 2 say that this has an impact on their mental health.

Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses that develop because of biological, social and psychological factors. Eating disorder hospitalizations and the need for treatment have dramatically increased during the pandemic.

Some reasons for this include isolation, food scarcity, boredom and social media content related to weight gain, such as the “quarantine15.” That was a reference to the weight gain some people were experiencing at the beginning of the pandemic, similar to the “freshman 15” belief that one will gain 15 pounds in the first year of college. Many teens whose routines were disrupted by the pandemic turned to eating disorder behaviors for an often-false sense of control or were influenced by family members who held unhealthy beliefs around food and exercise.

Researchers have also found that increased time at home during the pandemic led to more social media use by young people and therefore more exposure to toxic body image and dieting social media content.

While social media alone will not cause eating disorders, societal beliefs about beauty, which are amplified by social media, can contribute to the development of eating disorders.

‘Thinspo’ and ‘fitspo’

Toxic beauty standards online include the normalization of cosmetic and surgical procedures and pro-eating-disorder content, which promotes and romanticizes eating disorders. For instance, social media sites have promoted trends such as “thinspo,” which is focused on the thin ideal, and “fitspo,” which perpetuates the belief of there being a perfect body that can be achieved with dieting, supplements and excessive exercise.

Research has shown that social media content encouraging “clean eating” or dieting through pseudoscientific claims can lead to obsessive behavior around dietary patterns. These unfounded “wellness” posts can lead to weight cycling, yo-yo dieting, chronic stress, body dissatisfaction and higher likelihood of muscular and thin-ideal internalization.

Some social media posts feature pro-eating-disorder content, which directly or indirectly encourages disordered eating. Other posts promote deliberate manipulation of one’s body, using harmful quotes such as “nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” These posts provide a false sense of connection, allowing users to bond over a shared goal of losing weight, altering one’s appearance and continuing patterns of disordered eating.

While young people can often recognize and understand toxic beauty advice’s effects on their self-esteem, they may still continue to engage with this content. This is in part because friends, influencers and social media algorithms encourage people to follow certain accounts.

How policy changes could help

Legislators across the U.S. are proposing different regulations for social media sites.

Policy recommendations include increased transparency from social media companies, creation of higher standards of privacy for children’s data and possible tax incentives and social responsibility initiatives that would discourage companies and marketers from using altered photos.

Phone-free zones

Small steps at home to cut down on social media consumption can also make a difference. Parents and caregivers can create phone-free periods for the family. Examples of this include putting phones away while the family watches a movie together or during mealtimes.

Adults can also help by modeling healthy social media behaviors and encouraging children and adolescents to focus on building connections and engaging in valued activities.

Mindful social media consumption is another helpful approach. This requires recognizing what one is feeling during social media scrolling. If spending time on social media makes you feel worse about yourself or seems to be causing mood changes in your child, it may be time to change how you or your child interact with social media.

Emily Hemendinger, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.