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Increasing Home Insurance Costs Threaten the Value of Homes in High-Risk Areas
This Louisiana resident expects to pay 45 percent more for home insurance this year.
Similar increases are hitting homeowners across the state, where insurance costs have exploded over the past four years.
It’s part of a rapid shift that’s sending tremors through real estate markets across the country.
Even after she escaped rising floodwaters by wading away from her home in chest-deep water during Hurricane Rita in 2005, Sandra Rojas, now 69, stayed put. A fifth-generation resident of Lafitte, La., a small coastal community, she raised her home with stilts.
But this year, her annual home insurance premium increased to $8,312, more than doubling over the past four years.
She considered selling, but found herself in a dilemma. As insurance costs have risen, area home values have fallen, dropping by 38 percent since 2020. The roadsides around her house are dotted with for-sale signs.
“They won’t insure you,” Ms. Rojas said. “No one will buy from you. You’re kind of stuck where you are.”
New research shared with The New York Times estimates the extent to which rising home insurance premiums, driven higher by climate change, are cascading into the broader real estate market and eating into home values in the most disaster-prone areas.
The study, which analyzed tens of millions of housing payments through 2024 to understand where insurance costs have risen most, offers first-of-its-kind insight into the way rising insurance rates are affecting home values.
Since 2018, a financial shock in the home insurance market has meant that homes in the ZIP codes most exposed to hurricanes and wildfires would sell for an average of $43,900 less than they would otherwise, the research found. They include coastal towns in Louisiana and low-lying areas in Florida.
Changes in an under-the-radar part of the insurance market, known as reinsurance, have helped to drive this trend. Insurance companies purchase reinsurance to help limit their exposure when a catastrophe hits. Over the past several years, global reinsurance companies have had what the researchers call a “climate epiphany” and have roughly doubled the rates they charge home insurance providers.
Benjamin Keys at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Philip Mulder of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the authors of the study, which was published this week, have called these swift changes “a reinsurance shock.” For some Americans, these changes have made it unaffordable to remain in homes they have lived in for decades.
“Homeowners don’t appreciate or don’t understand that we are living in a much riskier world than we were 25 years ago,” Dr. Keys said. “And that risk? They have to pay for it.”
After analyzing 74 million home payments — which included mortgage, taxes and insurance and were made between 2014 and 2024 — the researchers found that a rapid repricing of disaster risk had been responsible for about a fifth of overall home insurance increases since 2017. Another third could be explained by rising construction costs.
The researchers estimated the effects of the reinsurance shock on home prices in the ZIP codes most vulnerable to catastrophes. They found that rising insurance premiums weighed down home values by about $20,500 in the top 25 percent of homes most exposed to catastrophic hurricanes and wildfires, and by $43,900 in the top 10 percent.
Buying a home has long been seen as a way to lock in predictable housing costs. But the fast-increasing burden of insurance is catching some homeowners by surprise.
Last year, Ms. Rojas’s brother-in-law, who lived down the road in Lafitte, decided to sell his home to escape the area’s rising premiums. It sold for $150,000, which is what it cost him to build it in 1984. He estimated he lost about $75,000 on the sale, after accounting for the cost of renovations.
In parts of the hail-prone Midwestern states, insurance now eats up more than a fifth of the average homeowner’s total housing payments, which include mortgage costs and property taxes. In Orleans Parish, La., that number is nearly 30 percent.
A hundred miles north of Lafitte, the small city of Bogalusa, La., lies further inland. Nevertheless, Cristal Holmes saw her insurance premium more than quadruple in 2022, to $500 per month, on top of her $700 monthly mortgage.
Ms. Holmes, a single mother who was working 56 hours a week at a warehouse, struggled to keep up with the higher bills. She fell behind on mortgage payments after her work hours were reduced to 35 per week. She worried she couldn’t stay in her home.
Similar stories are playing out all over town. Ms. Holmes’s real estate agent, Charlotte Johnson, said her office was getting phone calls every day from people who said they could no longer afford their rising insurance premiums. For many, dropping insurance is not an option, because banks refuse to offer or maintain mortgages for people without coverage.
That means owners are being forced to choose between accepting home insurance policies they can’t afford or risking foreclosure.
Buyers face their own obstacles. High insurance prices and interest rates are making it harder than ever for first-time buyers to purchase homes, said Nancy Galofaro-Cruse, a senior loan officer with CMG Home Loans who works with many of Ms. Johnson’s clients. She estimated that more than a third of would-be buyers in the area backed out of the market this year after insurance and interest rates pushed their total monthly housing costs out of reach.
It’s not just the hurricane-prone coasts that have been affected by the reinsurance shock. In Colorado, where wildfires and hail pose the biggest threats to homes, the average homeowner’s premium has more than doubled in the last decade and median premiums have increased 74 percent since 2020.
Steve Hakes, an insurance broker with Rocky Mountain Insurance Center in Lafayette, Colo., has seen clients consider homes in wildfire-prone areas, only to back out when they can’t find affordable insurance. High prices and limited availability have pushed him to advise buyers to look for insurance early in the homebuying process.
And in California, 13 percent of real estate agents surveyed by an industry trade association said they’d had deals fall through in 2024 after buyers couldn’t find affordable insurance coverage.
Colorado regulators are aware of the threats these dynamics pose to the real estate market and are exploring a wide range of fixes, said Michael Conway, the Colorado insurance commissioner.
“We don’t want a situation where the insurance market is effectively decimating the real estate market,” he said.
As insurance becomes more expensive, home values will need to adjust for potential buyers to afford their monthly costs, industry analysts say. And if home values fall, lower property tax revenue could mean less money for local governments to pay for essential services or affect the ability of those governments to borrow money.
Clarence Guidry reached a breaking point this year when he got a quote to insure his home in Lafitte, La. He’d pay a $20,000 annual premium but if a hurricane struck, he’d be on the hook for the first $50,000 in damage before the insurance company would pay out.
His lender wouldn’t let Mr. Guidry, who goes by Rosco, keep his mortgage without home insurance. But keeping his home insured against damage from hurricanes would mean stomaching monthly payments that are at least 40 percent higher than the rest of his monthly mortgage and property taxes combined.
Over the last decade, as the number of wildfires and storms has mounted, losses have exceeded the revenue insurance companies receive from home insurance policies across the United States. In Louisiana, 12 companies, including Mr. Guidry’s insurer, became insolvent after a wave of hurricanes between 2021 and 2023. (Most private insurers do not cover flood damage, which is handled separately under a federal program.)
Insurance companies’ own costs have climbed in recent years for a variety of reasons, including higher construction costs, higher interest rates and President Trump’s tariff policies.
But the changes in the insurance market have begun to put a higher price on risk. Reinsurers have been driving these effects, Dr. Mulder said.
“These reinsurers are looking at a lot of the same data as insurers, but at a much bigger scale and with more sophistication,” he said.
Politicians, homeowners, economists, state insurance commissioners and real estate agents have long worried that insurance costs will rise so much that they will begin to pull down home values.
According to the study by Dr. Keys and Dr. Mulder, which was published as a working paper in the National Bureau of Economic Research, this is already happening in some areas.
Jesse Keenan, an associate professor of sustainable real estate and urban planning at Tulane University, said the direct evidence of this phenomenon remained limited and there were factors beyond insurance that affected local home prices.
But there are increasingly troubling signs in some markets, he said.
“The New Orleans housing market is exhibiting signs of failure that are imposing stress on the financial system around it,” he said.
Overall, U.S. home prices have risen about 55 percent since 2018, but New Orleans prices have increased by only 14 percent, less than the rate of inflation over the same time period.
Even in states where heavy regulations have kept costs down, there are signs that home insurers will continue to raise premiums to align more closely with disaster risk. New rules in California allow insurance companies to pass rising reinsurance costs on to consumers. One consumer advocacy group, citing the effects of similar changes in other states, has estimated this provision could raise net premiums significantly for homeowners.
Back in Lafitte, Mr. Guidry was running the numbers for his own budget. Against the advice of his financial adviser, he took money out of his retirement account to pay off his home loan. The plan now is to self-insure for wind and hail damage. That means he and his wife will have to pay out of pocket to repair their home if another severe storm hits.
In forgoing coverage, the Guidrys join some 13 percent of U.S. homeowners who are uninsured, according to Census Bureau data. Insurers continue to drop people in many areas.
“Now, we’ve got to take the gamble,” Mr. Guidry said.
Methodology
Benjamin Keys and Philip Mulder calculated annual homeowners’ insurance costs by separating mortgage and tax payments from loan-level escrow data obtained from CoreLogic, a property and risk analytics firm. Households whose payments were captured by CoreLogic were not necessarily present in all years of data from 2014 to 2024.
The home insurance share of total home payments are based on mean values. Total home payments include insurance, property tax and mortgage principal and interest costs. Escrow payments typically do not include utilities, homeowners’ association fees.
I played a role in constructing the addictive nature of social media and now I foresee warning labels on the horizon. And this is just the beginning.
We don’t need to fear AI taking our jobs. We need to fear it taking our attention. Social media hooked us. AI is perfecting the addiction. But a movement to reclaim our focus is gaining ground.
I spent my early 20s at Google learning how to hack human attention. I analyzed data to understand exactly how to get people to click, scroll, and stay hooked to YouTube or Google Search. I was good at it. The work was fascinating, using behavioral science and machine learning to predict and influence what billions of people would do next.
What I didn’t realize then was that I was helping build the architecture of addiction that now defines modern life.
Last month, a billboard went up on Canal Street in NYC: “Scrolling Kills.” It kills our attention. Our time. The moments with our children, our ideas, our lives.
Within hours, it was everywhere, not because of clever marketing, but because it named what millions feel every day. Over one hundred million people have downloaded focus apps in the past year alone because they recognize this reality: hours vanishing into algorithmic black holes, every notification pulling them further from what actually matters.
Here’s what Washington is missing: parents are now putting screen time limits on their own phones, not their teenagers’. Adults can’t model behavior they can’t control themselves. Productivity has flatlined despite unprecedented technology because we spend half our workday fighting for focus. Willpower doesn’t work against systems that were engineered, tested, and perfected to be irresistible.
This is the context missing from every congressional hearing on social media. The problem isn’t misinformation or mental health in isolation. It’s that we’ve allowed private companies to exploit behavioral psychology against the public. Silicon Valley spent the last decade optimizing for engagement. The rest of us lost something we can’t get back.
Warning labels are a start. But they’re an admission that what’s happening to us is dangerous enough to require one.
The Real Cost of Doomscrolling
In June 2024, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for warning labels on social media, backed by 42 state attorneys general. Around the same time, Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” was climbing bestseller lists with the same message: the mental health crisis among young people rose in lockstep with smartphones. Dr. Murthy was direct: we have the evidence. Now we need action.
But Gen Z isn’t the only generation affected. Adults are losing just as much time, and the productivity cost is staggering. Research shows the average worker burns two hours daily on non-work screen time during work hours. Add context switching, where every interruption takes 15 minutes to recover from, and The Economist estimates the annual U.S. productivity loss exceeds $1 trillion. France calculates it at 2.9% of their entire GDP.
We fantasize about four-day work weeks. We can’t even protect five-day ones.
The mechanics are familiar: every scroll triggers dopamine, every notification promises validation. Stanford’s Dr. Anna Lembke writes in Dopamine Nation that we’re trapped in engineered pleasure loops designed to leave us perpetually unsatisfied, always reaching for the next hit. The platforms built this deliberately.
Then AI arrived, and the system became unbeatable. We’re scrolling through an internet where AI now generates more content than humans do. Our brains weren’t built to filter this. Harvard Medical School researchers have documented how this rewires our neural pathways, increasing anxiety, shrinking attention spans, and destroying our capacity for deep work.
The average American now spends 5 hours and 30 minutes per day on their phone, nearly a third of waking hours. Most get their first smartphone at age 12. By 40, you’ve spent seven full years staring at a screen. And usage is still increasing.
Why Warning Labels Matter
On October 13, 2025, California became the second state to require mental health warning labels on social media platforms. Starting January 1, 2027, platforms must display warnings that social media “can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
This matters because California is Silicon Valley’s home. When Big Tech’s backyard demands accountability, the tide has turned. It also validates Dr. Murthy’s call for tobacco-style warnings backed by 42 state attorneys general. Warning labels work, they worked for tobacco and alcohol by shifting cultural norms and creating legal liability that forces real change.
But warning labels are necessary, not sufficient.
What We Need Now
For lawmakers: Don’t stop at warning labels. Roll out California’s model nationwide. Require transparency about algorithmic manipulation. Fund independent research. Hold platforms liable for design patterns that systematically undermine users’ ability to control their own time and attention.
For platforms: The next generation of users is opting out. Data from focus apps like Opal shows seventy percent of users are students who’ve done the math on what infinite scroll costs them. They’re not waiting for regulation. The window to redesign these systems voluntarily is closing. Change the product, not just the PR.
For parents, educators, and employers: Stop waiting for policy. Tools exist now. Screen time awareness is becoming as fundamental as nutrition. Create environments that protect attention and reward focus.
For individuals: Your attention is your most valuable asset. Protect it like you’d protect your health.
The Movement Is Already Here
In 2008, working at Google, I wrote the first business plan for a focus app to counter this problem. I knew even then that what we were building wasn’t designed for human wellbeing. It took 11 years to build it, years of watching the greatest technological minds spend their days figuring out how to make you click one more ad.
Social media platforms profit from addiction. Their business model depends on it. That’s why individual willpower fails and why we need systemic change. We need to realign technology with human well-being, not quarterly earnings.
The distraction economy is stealing our mental health, our productivity, and our ability to be present for what matters. Warning labels are just the beginning. We’ll look back at this moment the same way we look back at tobacco ads proclaiming “More Doctors Smoke Camels.”
Your attention is yours. Take it back.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Brennen O’Neil, a Top IMer, Commits to Arizona State for 2026
By Terin Frodyma on SwimSwam
Fitter and Faster Swim Camps is the proud sponsor of SwimSwam’s College Recruiting Channel and all commitment news. For many, swimming in college is a lifelong dream that is pursued with dedication and determination. Fitter and Faster is proud to honor these athletes and those who supported them on their journey.
Fort Collins Area Swim Team’s Brennen O’Neil has committed to Arizona State University for the fall of 2026.
O’Neil was featured in the “Best of the Rest Section” in SwimSwam’s ranking of the top 20 recruits in the boys’ class of 2026.
I’m proud to announce my commitment to ASU Swim & Dive. I’m very grateful for this opportunity. I’d like to thank my parents, the ASU Coaching Staff, and FAST for teaching me world class character through excellence in swimming. Most of all, I would like to thank God for leading me here. Forks up ASU
O’Niel hails from Windsor, Colo., and represents Fossil Ridge High School. As a junior, O’Neil won the 200 IM for the 2nd time at the CHSAA Boys 5A State Championship meet this past May; he clocked 1:49.60 to take the win (altitude adjusted to 1:48.40). The year earlier, he won the event in a best time of 1:49.13 (altitude adjusted to 1:47.93).
At the 2024 Speedo Winter Juniors Championships – West, O’Neil swam his fastest ever 400 IM, clocking 3:51.83, finishing 11th overall. He also placed 18th in he 200 IM in 1:48.05, his fastest ever swim not adjusted for altitude.
A year earlier at the same meet, O’Neil notched two distance freestyle best times: the 1000 free in 9:27.52 and the 1650 free in 15:37.23.
O’Neil also holds a noteworthy best time in the 200 backstroke from the Speedo Sectionals in Rochester this past March, 1:46.07. He also holds bests of 1:39.50 in the 200 free and 4:34.76 in the 500 free, both adjusted for altitude.
Best Times SCY (PB Non-Altitude Adjusted)
- 200 IM: 1:47.93* (1:48.05)
- 400 IM: 3:51.83
- 200 Free: 1:39.50* (1:40.70)
- 500 Free: 4:34.76* (4:36.24)
- 1000 Free: 9:27.52
- 1650 Free: 15:37.23
- 200 Back: 1:46.07
*Altitude-adjusted
The Arizona State men won the team title at the 2025 Big 12 Swimming and Diving Championships last season. They also finished 6th at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships.
Based on O’Neil’s best times, he would have qualified for the ‘B’ final in the 400 IM and 200 back, and the ‘C’ final in the 200 IM.
O’Neil is super dynamic; he holds respectable additional best times in plenty of other events, including the 200 breast (2:01.34) and the 100 back (49.78).
While he ranks well among IMers, he also holds his own against distance freestylers. His scoring potential within the IM events will likely be his draw away from the distance free events.
O’Neil joins Ethan Linville, Oliver Munn, Jake Lloyd, Tyler Porter, Ian Disosway, Dillon Albertyn, Onur Oksuz, London Rising, Caleb Kattu, Jack Culberson, and Henry Lyness in the Sun Devils’ 2026 recruiting class.
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Read the full story on SwimSwam: “Best of the Rest” IMer Brennen O’Neil Commits to Arizona State for 2026
Exoskeleton Enhances Underwater Kicks to Prolong Dive Duration
Divers may soon be able to get a welcome boost to their flutter kicks thanks to an exoskeleton developed by researchers at Peking University (PU). By shouldering some of the burden of underwater swimming, the device could also make scuba tanks last longer.
Watching a diver glide through the water under the sea’s surface makes the activity look quite calm and gentle, but the process actually engages the largest muscle groups in the body – the legs. All of that muscle activation requires oxygen for fuel, which is provided by a diver’s tank. A diver using an 80-cubic-ft tank at a depth of 65.6 ft can expect that oxygen to last, on average, about 35-50 minutes.
In an effort to boost how much time a swimmer could stay under on one scuba tank, instead of focusing on breathing apparatus, the PU researchers took a novel approach: decreasing the energy expended while swimming and therefore oxygen needed by the diver.
The exoskeleton they created consists of multiple parts. There are two sealed motor units that mount to the diver’s back. These are connected to flexible Bowden cables that run down to lightweight cuffs on the diver’s thighs and shanks. A waist strap stabilizes the entire unit which mounts outside a diver’s wetsuit. The entire system weighs about 9 kg (20 lb), with most of the mass applied to the back of the diver.
Peking University
The real magic of the exoskeleton comes from the sensors embedded in the system called Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), which transmit the position of the legs to the motor. This allows the motor to sense where in the flutter kick the legs are as the diver swims and adjust the force on the Bowden cables as needed. During the downstroke of the kick, thanks to a built-in clutch, the motor engages and assists the motion. For the upstroke, the motor is disengaged so that the system doesn’t fight the diver’s recovery motion.
To test the system, the researchers attached an exoskeleton to six certified divers who used it in a 50-meter (164-ft) swimming pool at a depth of two meters (6.6 ft). Each diver completed three 100-meter (328-ft) underwater swims using a flutter kick both with and without the exoskeleton and with it powered on and off. The test revealed impressive results, reducing quadriceps and calf activation by just over 20%, and decreasing air intake by 22.7%.
The researchers say more testing is needed to further refine the exoskeleton. They plan to use computational fluid dynamics to map water resistance on divers; test in more dynamic real-world conditions beyond the swimming pool; alter swimming speeds and styles; experiment with different lighter-weight materials; and apply more sensors that will monitor metrics like heart rate in addition to air consumption.
“Our research extends the application boundary of wearable robots and introduces a brand-new scenario for exoskeleton studies,” write the researchers in the study, which has been published in the journal, IEEE Transactions on Robotics. “Essentially, powered exoskeletons provide an enhancement of human functionality, and special environments or working conditions do not entirely diminish their utility.
“Our work provides a reference for the design and assessment of future underwater assistive devices, with the potential to strengthen the connection between humans and the ocean and to broaden the horizons of exploration.”
Source: Peking University
Violations of Gaza ceasefire
We compare and contrast Israel’s ceasefire deal with Hamas and the reality on the ground within 24 hours.
Spotify brings audiobooks to 5 additional European countries, including Sweden
Spotify continues to expand the markets in which it offers audiobooks, announcing on Tuesday (November 18) that audiobook streaming is now available in five more European markets, including its home country of Sweden.
Audiobooks are now also available in Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Monaco, the company wrote on its blog.
As in some other markets, Premium subscribers will get 12 free hours of audiobooks per month, with the option of buying more time in 10-hour increments. Free users have the option of buying audiobooks individually.
For the first time at launch, Spotify is offering listeners the option to subscribe to Audiobooks+, a recurring monthly add-on that offers additional audiobook hours and enables managers of Family and Duo accounts to purchase access for sub-accounts.
The 12 hours of included time is at the low end of the range that Spotify offers at no extra cost to Premium subscribers. In the US, UK, Canada and elsewhere, Premium plans come with 15 hours. The variation is reportedly due to differences in the deals Spotify has signed with publishers.
Spotify also announced that it is beta-testing a new ‘recap’ feature for English-language titles, offering personalized summaries of a book based on where the listeners last left off.
In the mostly Nordic countries where audiobooks launched this week, Spotify says listeners will have access to 300,000 audiobooks, including “the region’s largest selection of English-language catalog available on a consumption-based service” and a “thoughtfully curated” local-language catalog.
“The Nordics are home to some of the world’s most passionate audiobook listeners and some of Spotify’s most engaged communities. With Audiobooks in Premium now available in these countries, we’re opening new doors for both local and international authors and publishers to reach more listeners than ever before,” Spotify said.
Spotify is painting its expansion into audiobooks – which began two years ago – as a commercial success. Data shared with Bloomberg last month, and reiterated on its blog Tuesday, showed that the number of audiobook listeners in English-language markets grew 36% over the past year, with listening hours up 37%.
“We’re opening new doors for both local and international authors and publishers to reach more listeners than ever before.”
Spotify
Spotify says more than half (52%) of audiobook listeners globally are between the ages of 18 and 34, “underscoring how we’re connecting a new generation with the power of storytelling. Leading publishers such as Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, and Lagardère have even credited Spotify with driving double-digit growth in audio sales.”
Spotify’s move into audiobooks has sparked some controversy within the music industry, particularly in the US, where the streaming platform’s decision to treat its subscriptions as music/audiobook “bundles” resulted in a reduction of mechanical royalty payouts to publishers and songwriters.
That move has triggered legal actions on behalf of song rights owners, including a lawsuit brought by The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) against Spotify, which continues in federal court despite a setback earlier this year, and a complaint against Spotify filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The expansion of its audiobooks service comes hot on the heels of another Spotify product expansion – one that’s arguably going to have more impact on the music business.
Spotify recently launched its long-awaited “super-premium” tier for music superfans in five pilot markets – India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.
Dubbed ‘Premium Platinum,’ the new tier includes lossless audio quality (something for which Spotify users have been clamoring for years), AI-powered features like AI DJ and AI Playlist, and mixing tools, among other things.Music Business Worldwide
One of the deadliest strikes on western Ukraine: Russian assault on Ternopil targets residential buildings
At least 16 people have been killed and dozens more wounded in a Russian drone and missile attack on the western city of Ternopil that hit two blocks of flats, Ukrainian officials say.
Among the 64 wounded were 14 children, police said, in one of the deadliest Russian strikes on western Ukraine since the full-scale war began in February 2022.
Two other western regions were hit, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, and a drone attack targeted three districts of the northern city of Kharkiv, wounding more than 30 people. Photos posted online showed buildings and cars ablaze.
Power cuts were affecting a number of regions across the country, Ukraine’s energy ministry said.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had fired more than 470 drones and 47 missiles, leaving “significant destruction”. He warned that people could be trapped under the rubble in Ternopil.
The devastation caused by the Russian strikes soon became clear. A video shared by Zelensky showed that one of the two blocks of flats had completely caved in. The interior minister Ihor Klymenko said it had been destroyed between the third and the ninth floor.
Plumes of smoke poured from windows and small fires burned outside the tenement.
A giant smoke cloud rose in the distance behind the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ternopil, as sirens blared throughout the city.
Energy facilities, transport and civil infrastructure were damaged elsewhere in western Ukraine.
The energy sector came under attack in Ivano-Frankivsk region where two of three people reported wounded were children.
The head of Lviv region said an energy facility had been struck.
The Russian strikes came a day after Ukraine’s military said it had fired US-supplied longer-range Atacms missiles at military targets inside Russia, the first time they have admitted using the Atacms on Russian soil.
Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of firing four of the missiles at the southern city of Voronezh but said they had all been shot down by air defences.
Meanwhile, Zelensky is heading to the Turkish capital Ankara, in an attempt to revive a US bid to end the war. He will hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid reports that President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has been working on a plan with Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev.
The Kremlin said no Russian representative would be joining the talks in Ankara. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on a media report that the US and Russia had been secretly working on a peace plan for Ukraine.
“In this case, there is nothing new that we can inform you about,” Peskov told journalists on Wednesday.
His comments came amid reports that Zelensky was due to meet two top US army officials in Kyiv on Thursday. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff General Randy George are the most senior US military officials to visit the Ukrainian capital since President Donald Trump took office, Reuters reports.
In a separate development, Romania’s defence ministry said a Russian drone had flown for about 8km (5 miles) through its airspace in the early hours of Wednesday. The drone then crossed into Ukraine and Moldova before returning to Romania, it said.
Romanian and German air force planes were scrambled in response to the incursion and the defence ministry said it was unclear where the drone had come down.
Poland also deployed jets early on Wednesday and temporarily closed two airports in the southeast in response to the strikes in western Ukraine.
As the fourth anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches next February, Moscow and Kyiv remain fundamentally opposed in their views of how to end the war.
Earlier this month Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia’s conditions for a peace deal had not changed since Putin laid them out in 2024.
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See the Changes in Home Insurance Premiums in Your Area
Insurance premiums are rising fast in the parts of the United States most exposed to climate-related disasters like wildfires and hurricanes.
New research shows that, as insurance has sharply pushed up the cost of owning a home, the price shock is starting to reverberate through the broader real estate market.
Rising insurance costs are eating into household budgets.
In some areas of the country that are exposed to disasters, homes are not selling because prospective buyers can’t afford both the mortgage and the insurance.
In parts of the hail-prone Midwestern states, insurance now eats up more than one-fifth of the average homeowner’s total housing payments, including mortgage costs and property taxes. In Orleans Parish, La., that number is nearly 30 percent.
Home insurance costs have soared where climate hazards are highest.
Nationally, insurance rates have risen by an average of 58 percent since 2018, outpacing inflation by a substantial margin. But that growth has been highly uneven across the United States.
Places that are most vulnerable to climate-related disasters like hurricanes, fires and hail are seeing some of the largest premium increases. It’s not always the case that the highest climate risk translates into the highest insurance costs. Local policies and regulations have helped keep prices lower in high-risk places, like parts of California. Other factors, like a homeowner’s credit score, can affect premiums, too.
What’s driving up insurance prices?
Since 2017, an obscure part of the insurance market, known as reinsurance, has helped push up premiums. Insurance companies buy reinsurance to help limit their exposure when a catastrophe hits. Over the past several years, reinsurance companies have experienced what Benjamin Keys and Philip Mulder, the researchers who led the new study, call a “climate epiphany.” As a result, the rates they charge to protect home insurance companies against catastrophic losses have roughly doubled.
Insurance providers have, in turn, passed these costs on to homeowners. The rapid repricing of climate risk is responsible for about 20 percent of home insurance premium increases since 2017, according to Dr. Keys and Dr. Mulder.
What else is contributing to high rates? Rebuilding costs are responsible for about 35 percent of the recent changes, the research found. Population shifts and inflation are factors, too.
High insurance prices are weighing down home values.
Since 2018, a financial shock in the home insurance market has meant that homes in the ZIP codes most exposed to hurricanes and wildfires sell for an average of $43,900 less than they otherwise would have, the research found.
In many places, insurance has been a relatively small part of the homebuying equation. Now, for many, it’s a major consideration.
For several homeowners we interviewed in Louisiana, monthly insurance costs are now higher than their home loan payments.
The research shows buyers may be factoring rising insurance costs into the prices they’re willing to pay for homes. As a result, homes in some areas are selling for less.
Methodology
Benjamin Keys and Philip Mulder calculated annual homeowners’ insurance costs by separating mortgage and tax payments from loan-level escrow data obtained from CoreLogic, a property and risk analytics firm. Households whose payments were captured by CoreLogic were not necessarily present in all years of data from 2014 to 2024.
The home insurance share of total home payments is based on mean values. Total home payments include insurance, property tax and mortgage principal and interest costs. Escrow payments typically do not include utilities, homeowners’ association fees.