The impact of Hurricane Helene on Wisconsin was a late September, windy weekend as the remnants passed to the State’s southeast. No houses destroyed. No infrastructure to rebuild. Yet, Wisconsinites may feel and economic pinch from the one-two punch delivered by Helen and Hurricane Milton a week later. One area that could affect your home finances is insurance. “Those large events, when we’re talking tens of billions of dollars, add up and everyone contributes,” explained R&R Insurance executive Jeff Szalacinski.Â
RELATED: Helene and other storms dumped a whopping 40 trillion gallons of rain
Szalacinski tells WTMJ’s Wisconsin’s Morning News, consumer level insurance companies, also buy insurance. “They’re buying insurance to protect their portfolios,” Szalacinski described. “With all of the devastating weather we’ve had over the last five, six, seven years, that pool of carriers has shrunk a little bit.” When reinsurance for these companies costs more, that cost often trickles down to us. “The insurance companies that operate here in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest, buy their insurance, their reinsurance, from the same companies that are providing that insurance cover in Florida, or in California, or in Hawaii or on the East Coast.”
Without regard for whether there are more frequent or more powerful storms due to climate change, Szalacinski says the cost of insurance is going up, because the cost of the things we insure is going up. “Your home. It takes much more money to repair after an event than it did, say, two or three years ago. Everything’s more expensive. Your car, getting it repaired or getting it serviced. The labor is expensive. The building materials are expensive. The auto parts are expensive. Everything that’s happening in today’s world, whether it’s supply change, catastrophic weather, are putting pressure on price, and it’s going up.”
Due to that, Szalacinski recommends at least checking to see whether you’re properly insured. “If you have a limit of insurance that you haven’t really looked at or evaluated in two or three years, it’s not enough. It needs to go up,” he said. Szalacinksi suggests having contact annually with your insurance agent.