In the 1970’s, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) started using the Hurricane Wind Scale, the top hurricane with the most destructive power was called “Category 5” as it “represented oblivion.” Such a hurricane with sustained winds of 157 mph had unthinkable destructive power. And yet climate change has shifted our perception, tolerance, and normalization of what was once unthinkable.

Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, recently suggested the introduction of a “Category 6,” adding a new, terrifying measure to adequately account for the exponential destructive power of five storms with sustained winds of 192 mph. The fact that we’re having to adjust our hurricane ratings indicates that we are dealing with something new and unusual. All fingers point to climate change, and the myriad of ways it is creating conditions for hurricanes of this magnitide to develop.

Aside from the very real and immediate risks to human health and safety inflicted at landfall, hurricanes are also making people inhabiting these areas more vulnerable. Families with houses in Florida, along the Gulf, and even the West Coast (I wrote this as I hunkered through yet another California atmospheric river) are experiencing a new phenomenon known as “climate uninsurability.” Insurers are not prepared to handle “hundred-year storms” every year. These destructive storms means that the old method of actuaries calculating the probability of an insurance payout and adjusting rates accordingly doesn’t work. Business as usual no longer applies with conditions so radically altered.

Natural catastrophes - with hundred-year floods, hundred-year typhoons, and certainly hundred-year wildfires – are now happening pretty much continuously, sometimes overlapping. This makes the insurance industry unable to provide the most basic homeowners’ insurance. Extremely costly natural disasters have become “a new norm,” and insured losses will double in 10 years due to climate change, according to Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers. This firm, which provides insurance for insurers to spread the risk, calculated that natural disasters resulted in insured losses of $108 billion in 2023, marking the fourth consecutive year of losses exceeding $100 billion. As Bloomberg noted, “only about 40% of economic losses globally are insured, meaning the total economic losses are much higher.”

As You Sow engages major insurers every year. Chubb, Travelers, and Berkshire Hathaway, and others at the forefront of this movement to withdraw from risky markets as they continue to raise rates and leave towns uninsured rather than face losses alarming to consumers, investers, shareholders, and executives. Insurance companies are in prime position to asssess their role in the climate crisis that makes these storms much more likely to be frequent and damaging. They are on their own life raft to not just survive but maintain profitability and coverage for their customers.

“Category 6” is the loud alarm for insurers to take the lead to protect themselves and stop underwriting new fossil fuel projects thus weighing climate risk in their insuring decisions. It is not too late to change course before we need to create a Category 7.

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Editor’s note–The 2024 hurricane season begins June 1 through November 30, and is expected to be one of the most active on record.