SACRAMENTO, United States, June 25 (Xinhua) -- From wildfire-prone California to hurricane-lashed Florida, U.S. homeowners are seeing insurance premiums surge nearly twice as fast as their paychecks, forcing millions into an impossible choice between keeping their homes and maintaining financial survival, recent reports show.

Nowhere is the squeeze tighter than California's capital, Sacramento, where average premiums have soared 54 percent since 2019 while homeowner incomes inched up just 24 percent, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis of data from Zillow, a real estate company, earlier this month.

The city now ranks among the most severely impacted insurance markets in the nation, along with four Florida metros -- Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa -- known for their vulnerability to hurricanes.

The Zillow report revealed that since 2019, home insurance premiums had increased by 38 percent nationally, while the median homeowner income had risen by only 22 percent. Moreover, insurance premiums are growing at the fastest rate in places with relatively higher climate risk.

The Consumer Federation of America reported a 24-percent nationwide surge in insurance premiums over the past three years, driven by escalating climate disasters such as wildfires, floods and hurricanes. These events have reshaped communities and left millions struggling to find affordable coverage -- or any coverage at all.

In California, the trend is particularly severe. Sacramento's premium spike was echoed in other major metro areas: San Diego saw a 48 percent rise, Los Angeles 44 percent, Riverside 43 percent, and San Francisco 42 percent. Incomes in these cities increased by only 19 to 24 percent during the same period.

"For places where houses are very unaffordable to begin with, just adding a little bit more unaffordability to the picture doesn't change the fact that it's still unaffordable," said Kara Ng, a senior economist at Zillow. "For cities where you actually have a fighting chance, adding additional burden would lower the amount of listings you would have."

The personal toll of rising premiums is significant. Mike Kubo, a NASA researcher, rebuilt his home in California's Santa Cruz Mountains for 1.4 million U.S. dollars after it was destroyed by fire in 2020. One day after moving in, State Farm, his insurer, dropped his coverage. He now faces insurance premiums that jumped fivefold to nearly 1,000 U.S. dollars monthly through California's high-risk insurance pool.

"It's devastating," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "In hindsight, I question if this was a wise financial decision to rebuild."

Insurance costs may rise even further due to proposed federal tariffs. An analysis by the insurance platform Insurify found that tariffs could push the projected national average to 3,626 dollars by the end of 2025, a projected 11-percent increase from the end of 2024.

Tariffs on steel and aluminum, introduced by the Trump administration, would add about 106 dollars to average homeowner expenses nationwide, and as much as 464 dollars in Florida.

"Many insurers have stopped writing policies in the region as a whole, or are only offering them at a high price," said Irene Sabourin, an independent broker in Citrus Heights, California. She reported premiums rising 10 percent to 20 percent over the past year alone.

The crisis forced impossible choices on families. Many Sacramento homeowners can secure coverage only after costly upgrades to electrical wiring, plumbing, or roofs. Those who cannot afford improvements end up with California's FAIR Plan, the expensive insurance industry-sponsored insurer of last resort.

Industry analyses indicated that what began as a coastal issue had evolved into a national emergency. Insurance premiums accounted for 1.64 percent of average borrower income in 2023, up from 1.49 percent in 2018, according to Freddie Mac data. Homeowners collectively paid 21 billion dollars more in 2024 than three years earlier.

The exodus is accelerating across the United States. Major insurers are fleeing entire regions. State Farm dropped 72,000 policies in California and slammed the door on new applications. Allstate halted all new homeowner policies statewide in California in November 2022. Florida has hemorrhaged more than 30 insurance companies since Hurricane Ian battered the state.

The First Street Foundation's 12th National Risk Assessment warned that climate-driven insurance costs are lowering property values and displacing populations. Over 3.2 million Americans have already fled high flood-risk neighborhoods, creating "climate abandonment areas" that could lose another 2.5 million residents within 30 years.

Climate disasters now cost over 2.3 trillion dollars annually worldwide, including indirect impacts, according to the Global Assessment Report 2025. Wildfires, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes strike with increasing frequency and ferocity, turning profitable regions into financial death traps for insurers. ■