The impact of extreme weather this year is adding up for many Americans, according to a new nationwide report.
It finds more than 50 percent of adults say their budgets took a hit from an extreme weather event over the last 10 years.
Financial experts say an extreme weather event isn’t always a major disaster.
A new Bankrate survey reveals more than 70 percent of Americans say they had higher than usual energy bills this summer. Many of them say those expenses drained their finances.
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“About six and 10 Southerners say that their finances were strained this summer, because of high air conditioning bills,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.
Other weather expenses from the past decade include the loss of spoiled food because of a power outage.
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“For everybody, there’s this cumulative effect of month after month of high inflation, higher interest rates, it just doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room,” said Rossman.
The report also shows more than half of adults believe extreme weather will have a significant impact on their wallets over the next decade.
“Even if nothing bad happens, you’re paying higher rates,” said Rossman. “This is really becoming kind of a crisis of sorts in some places like Florida, where they just have exponentially higher home insurance bills, car insurance bills. Now a lot of that is big, because there have been recent losses and companies are propping up their rates in response.”
There’s some support available at the federal level. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) helps lower-income families cover the costs of air conditioning or heating bills.
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