Join us for the launch of the 2024-2025 Science on the Sound Lecture Series season on August 28 at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks Campus. This monthly, in-person lecture series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina. This month, Don Hornstein will present “What in the World is Happening with Homeowners and Flood Insurance at the North Carolina Coast?“ on August 28, 2024, at 6:00 PM.
Within the last 10 years, Nationwide Insurance canceled coverage for 10,000 North Carolina coastal residents, and the State’s homeowner insurers have together proposed a 50-100% rate increase for all coastal homes, a proposal currently pending before the State’s Commissioner of Insurance – with a hearing scheduled in October. Separately, FEMA has rolled out “Risk Rating 2.0,” the biggest change to federal flood insurance in 50 years – and an initiative that has so far survived a federal court challenge in Louisiana and is scheduled for a full trial.
Professor Hornstein will give updates on all of these matters, not to mention what’s happening to homeowners and flood insurance throughout the United States. He can also give us an insider’s view of the “resilient-roof” grant program for NCIUA policyholders, an award-winning climate-resiliency program that he helped design.
Don Hornstein is the Thomas F. Taft Distinguished Professor at UNC School of Law and a political appointee of the NC Insurance Commissioner to the State’s “insurer of last resort” – the North Carolina Insurance Underwriters Association (NCIUA- also sometimes known as the “Beach Plan”). He has won over 10 teaching awards at UNC, including the Board of Governors 2019 Award for Excellence given to the single “best” teacher on the entire campus. A few years earlier, he was named one of the 25 best law teachers in the United States in a book published by the Harvard University Press, “What the Best Law Teachers Do.”
Professor Hornstein is a practicing lawyer and expert in environmental and insurance law. For 15 years, both Republican and Democratic Commissioners of Insurance in North Carolina have appointed him to the NCIUA’s Board of Directors, where he Chairs its Mitigation Committee that has designed the NCIUA’s $50 million “resilient-roof grant” program for NCIUA policyholders on the Outer Banks/Barrier Islands, the largest such climate-resiliency program in the world that is operated by a single insurer.
The program is free and the public is encouraged to attend. It will also be live-streamed on the CSI YouTube channel for those unable to make it in person.
Based at the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI), the North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program (NCROEP) advances inter-disciplinary marine energy solutions across UNC System partner colleges of engineering at NC State University, UNC Charlotte, and NC A&T University. Click on the links below for more information.
ECU's Integrated Coastal Programs (ECU ICP) is a leader in coastal and marine research, education, and engagement. ECU ICP includes the Coastal Studies Institute, ECU's Department of Coastal Studies, and ECU Diving and Water Safety.
The ECU Outer Banks campus is home to the Coastal Studies Institute.
