• The state identifies neighborhoods that will need to be abandoned in a few decades and puts them in a program to turn them into retirement communities. A person who owns a home in such an area can sell it normally if they want to anyone who will buy.
• If an elderly retired person is interested in a property in that area they have the option of instead of buying it themselves from the seller having the state buy the property, and they then pay the state. The state gets title to the property and the retiree gets the right to live in it until they die.
• If the retired person wants to leave before they die (or has to leave because they can no longer live on their own or the time has finally come that the property must be abandoned), they are offered free room and board for life at a state managed assisted living community.
• If they left for a reason other than that the property has to be abandoned the state opens it up to another retired elderly person on the same terms. The new person pays what a similar property in a place not under threat would sell for, and they are now set for housing for the rest of their life as long as they stay there or transfer to state managed assistant living.
• To further make these properties attractive to elderly retirees the residents should not have to pay property taxes and utility rates should be capped. Maybe also toss in a free shuttle service to minimize the need for cars so people don't have to leave just because they are no longer able to drive safely.
Usually there is no insurance.
The insurance industry, for all of its other faults, is one of the few left that still deals in reality instead of vibes so they aren't going to give you affordable insurance against floods/hurricanes/etc in these areas with any real coverage.
I have a house in Louisiana (up "north") - outside of a couple tornados every few years, and the heavy rains of a hurricane every few years, it is a fairly "safe" place. Never been a claim against the property, or any immediate neighbors. We aren't in a floodplain of any sort, and are on top of a hill that is around 120 feet above the closest creek.
My premium has gone up 250% over the last 3 years (after being steady for a decade). Shopping around, they are even higher. I think they are finally starting to catch up with where they needed to be for years, but I can't help but feel I'm offsetting the people "down south" with their more expensive property that is literally underwater.
I am not sure about Louisiana, but you very well may be.
State insurance commissions sometimes promulgate onerous regulations that effectively require cost shifting. For example, if it's profitable to keep operating in a state overall, but you can't raise premiums or drop policies for the riskiest properties, then you just raise premiums across the board and let the less-risky subsidize the unprofitable policies.
And rising reinsurance premiums mean that everybody pays more to account for increasing risks and costs in the insurers' portfolios, which may be concentrated in riskier areas far from your own property.
People in New Orleans have affordable flood insurance?
