September 24, 2021
When I was a branch manager for national brokerage firm in Florida, our idea of business development was to unlock the front door and wait for the money to come rolling in from clients looking to transfer their accounts from places like Massachusetts to avoid estate taxes. People would spend their entire lives working in Massachusetts, and then have their pension checks forwarded to Florida. Florida boomed. Little did I know that the federal government, which is you and me, was underwriting these moves with well below market levels of flood insurance.
Well, the chickens are getting ready to come home to roost. Climate change has reeked havoc on many Florida communities. Condominiums are collapsing, and Miami is leaking. Insurance companies and the federal government are about to say “no mas” to Florida. When the Feds lift the subsidies, rates could skyrocket 10 times or more. The thinking is we shouldn’t be encouraging people to build and live in dangerous areas. Maybe relatively stable places like western Massachusetts aren’t so bad after all. We don’t have a crazy climate, we don’t have a crazy Governor, and, with global warming, we can play golf all year long. Come on up!
The Spin Doctor 