"Either the industry has to solve it itself or the state has to ensure that there are certain rules for the companies that allow everyone to be covered, at a reasonable cost, even in the future," said Åsa Westlund, environmental and climate policy spokesperson for the Social Democrats.
She said, at the press conference, that she does not really believe that the insurance companies or the market can solve it on their own.
"Really not. These customers will, for no fault of their own, become very unprofitable for the companies. If we do not want individuals to pay the full price for climate change, we must take joint responsibility,' said Westlund.
She emphasised that the homeowners she is referring to are not those who, despite advice, have built houses in places that are exposed to erosion, flooding or other consequences of extreme weather.
The ones she is referring to are those who have older houses which, when they were built, were not in exposed places but which have since become so, or where new risk assessments have been made.
In February this year, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Fi) issued a report on how climate change can affect the price of insurance and what a denied insurance can mean.
According to Fi, it will likely become more expensive to insure homes and companies will need to adapt insurance policies accordingly. But the risk is, in the short term, small that homeowners will be denied insurance.
The risk is greater where floods and landslides have occurred before.
The risk can be reduced. The homeowners themselves could, for example, adapt their property to the climate, or the municipality could make adaptations to make an area more protected from extreme weather.
The Fi report also emphasized that the banks' willingness to grant or extend mortgages, with the house as collateral, depends on whether the house is insured.
According to a compilation that Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter made in June, there are approximately 50,000 buildings in coastal areas in Sweden that are at risk of flooding during high tide events – which can be when storms have raised the water level.
Åsa Westlund criticizes the Tidö parties and the government for having reduced resources for climate adaptation since the 2022 election.