Staff Working Paper No. 995
By Nicola Garbarino, Benjamin Guin and Jonathan Lee
Subsidised insurance against extreme weather events improves its affordability among households in high-risk areas but it can weaken the risk signal via property prices. Leveraging a granular data set of all property transactions and flooding in England, we study the effects of a reinsurance scheme which lowers insurance premiums for at-risk properties. We document that the introduction of this scheme increases prices and transaction volumes of flood-prone properties. This fully offsets the negative direct effects of flooding on property prices, with high-income areas and high-value properties benefiting relatively more. Our findings speak to the debate on transition risk and wealth redistribution in response to public interventions addressing climate change.
The effects of subsidised flood insurance on real estate markets
