This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribunea member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom that informs and engages Texans about state politics and policy.
Many Panhandle residents whose homes and possessions burned in the region’s ongoing wildfires may never recover financially for one simple reason: Their homes were not insured.
“Many of the people who lost a home had no insurance,” Gov Greg Abbott said at a March 1 press conference. “There are therefore many people in great need at the moment.”
Texans pay some of the highest homeowners insurance premiums in the country. Increased risk of extreme weather events, driven at least in part by climate change, has driven up the costs. Growth in home owner insurance rates here overtook the rest of the country last yearcomplicating Texans’ ability to pay.
In Texas, those without insurance are also more likely to be those who have a harder time recovering from a disaster: lower-income households and rural residents. That means Texans without insurance face a steep — if not impossible — road to restoring the financial well-being they had before disaster struck.
Patricia Hester, a 76-year-old Fritch resident, is among several Panhandle residents whose home was destroyed by a wildfire that swept through her neighborhood on the town’s south side on Feb. 27. She dropped her homeowner’s insurance on her manufactured home about a decade ago. ago due to rising costs.
“When you’re on a limited income, something’s got to give,” Hester said. “You have to be able to eat and get gas in the car. So that’s what I gave.”
It’s common for families, especially low-income ones, in areas devastated by the Panhandle fires to lack homeowners insurance, local officials and community leaders said. Many simply cannot afford it and because they own their homes outright, nothing requires them to wear them, they said.
Julie Winters, the executive director of Hutchinson County United Way, said about 70 families in Fritch whose homes were damaged or destroyed asked the organization for help on March 1. Most of them didn’t have homeowner’s insurance, she said.
“It’s a lower socioeconomic level of the community that’s been hit,” Winters said. “They probably can’t afford insurance.”
Texas homeowners who go without insurance tend to be lower income, according to a analysis of US Census Bureau data conducted by the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. Homeowners in the state’s rural areas are more likely to lack insurance than their urban counterparts, the analysis found. About 11 percent of homeowners in the state’s major metropolitan areas lack homeowners insurance, while about 26 percent of homeowners in rural areas lack it.
This further complicates matters: Several homes that burned down were manufactured homes, which homeowners can struggle to insure. That’s because insurers see them as riskier investments because they’re highly vulnerable to fires and other natural disasters, said Thomas Chandler, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University.
And homeowners insurance is considered the most obvious way to seek financial restitution after a major disaster, experts told the Tribune. Going without means homeowners will have to pay out of pocket for repairs and rebuilds — or rely on assistance from the public and private sectors that may not come.
Officials have not determined the full extent of the disaster as the fires continue, although hundreds of homes are believed to have been damaged or destroyed. The ultimate extent of the damage will determine whether displaced residents and others affected by the wildfires qualify for federal disaster assistance under an emergency declaration.
On March 1, Abbott said he was awaiting a full assessment of the damage before seeking a statement from the federal government.
Even with the help that may come with a federal disaster declaration, it likely won’t fully replace what many homeowners in the Panhandle have lost, Chandler said.
“It’s really more ‘get back on your feet’ money designed to enable you to just start over,” Chandler said.
Stacy McFall, a 52-year-old certified nursing assistant who lives in Fritch, said she was trying to get insurance to cover her childhood home, which she moved into about 14 years ago. But the house didn’t sit on a foundation, she said, so no insurer would write her a policy.
Flames engulfed McFall’s home on February 27. She had just enough time to pack her three dogs and a pile of clothes into her car before evacuating, she said. McFall’s sister has taken her in for now, but McFall isn’t sure how she’ll bounce back yet.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” McFall said. “You feel kind of numb. You don’t know if you’re going to get a house. Everything is burnt and I have to start all over again.”
McFall’s son and daughter, who live in Dallas and Austin, respectively, have asked her to come live with them, she said, but she doesn’t want to move.
“This is my home,” McFall said.
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