The cost of climate change is scorching homeowners

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Dylan Bouscher—MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/Getty Images

Getting burned: Battles over the cost of climate change are scorching California homeowners

As the state’s wildfires get worse, the insurance industry wants the price of homeowners coverage to reflect the risks.

Some can afford the expense. But even the richest ZIP codes offer a window into the economic fallout from wildfires—recurring disasters that are intensifying in part owing to climate change. Across the American West, a surge of decisions by insurers not to renew the fire policies of property owners in combustible locations is spurring political fights and stoking fears of sinking property values. More consequentially, it is exacerbating societal inequities in ways that foreshadow dilemmas that will become more common in a warming world.

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