“What do they call the 4th of July in nursing homes? In Depends Day.” (Another joke at the bottom.) There are plenty of elderly people, year ‘round, and hurricanes, seasonally, in Florida. There are ways to build homes that will survive hurricanes. Wood is not the solution! Here’s a story about Florida resident Amy Hawk who was paid only $8,000 by her insurance company after a hurricane destroyed her house and what she’s doing about it. Damages from weather disasters hit $92.9 billion last year, according to NOAA, and years of increasingly damaging weather events have provoked a reaction in the insurance market, with costs up 13 percent from 2020 to 2023. Those are being driven by premium increases in some of the areas most prone to disasters, and a big driver in turn is the rising cost of reinsurance, which is the insurance bought by insurance companies which itself has increased in costs 100 percent between 2017 and 2023. Home insurance companies are roughing it: for the fifth year in a row, insurers paid out more than they brought in with premiums, and in 2023 they paid out $1.11 in claims for every $1 they made. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by The BIG Point of Sale, which offers a highly configurable, easy to install point of sale solution. Its simplified consumer workflows and web-based portals allow for consumers and loan originators to collaborate with the back-office team to keep everyone informed throughout the loan process. Hear an interview with Nectar’s Derrick Barker on the Federal Housing Finance Agency announcing higher caps that allow Fannie and Freddie to purchase up to $146 billion in multifamily loans.)