He could see from the driveway that Meg had the kitchen light on but wasn't cooking. She was at the counter with the laptop open, and when he came in carrying Eli she closed it.
"Greg called," she said.
Greg was their insurance broker. He set Eli down and the boy went straight for his blocks.
"About what."
"The flood policy." She took the chicken out of the fridge, which told him she'd been sitting there a while. "He said our risk profile got revised. It's based on our specific property now. The foundation, the elevation, how close we are to the water."
"OK."
"The premium's going up. There's a cap, eighteen percent a year, but it keeps going up every year until it hits what he called the full-risk rate." She unwrapped the chicken. "For a slab foundation at our elevation, the full-risk rate is a lot higher than what we're paying now."
"Did he say how much."
"He's sending the numbers tomorrow. He said he's been making a lot of these calls."
He washed his hands and started on the rice. Through the kitchen window he could see the Hendersons' place across the street, up on its new pilings since last year, the concrete columns pale against the older siding. Next to it the Walshs' place sat on its slab like it always had. Same block. Two houses.
They ate with Eli between them. Eli talked about the frog song at daycare and a boy who could burp on command. Meg laughed at the right moments. He cut Eli's chicken smaller and thought about the deductible.
The windstorm deductible was a percentage, not a flat amount. Two percent of insured value. On their coverage that was six thousand out of pocket before anything kicked in. And the flood deductible was separate. Same storm, two claims, two deductibles. He'd known this the way you know things that haven't happened yet.
"The Garcias' sign is still up," Meg said.
"I saw."
It had been up since January. The sign had faded in a way for-sale signs didn't used to fade by March. The AC was running. Sixty-some days until hurricane season.
After dinner he took Eli up for his bath. Eli brought two boats and a whale. He sat on the tile floor and held the whale while Eli drove the boats into it. Eli wanted the book about the excavator. He read it twice.
When he came back down Meg was at the sink. The laptop was open again on the counter, turned to face the wall.
"He also said something about the coverage cap," she said, not turning around. "Two-fifty is the max on the flood policy. If it cost more than that to rebuild—"
"I know."
"I know you know."
The water ran. She washed a plate and he picked up the towel.
"My mom asked again about San Antonio," she said.
"Yeah."
"I told her we hadn't thought about it."
"OK."
She handed him another plate. Outside, the Hendersons' porch light was on twelve feet up, throwing light at an angle it never used to when the house was on the ground. The Garcias' windows were dark.
He put the last plate away. Meg wiped the counter and closed the laptop. He checked the back door, which he always checked, and the front, which he'd started checking after Beryl. Left the porch light on.
They went upstairs without saying anything else. Eli's door was open the way he liked it, the nightlight making a blue rectangle on the hall floor. He stood there a second and listened to him breathe.
Meg was already in the bedroom. The AC cycled on and he could feel the slab under his feet, which he didn't usually feel. The concrete foundation every house on this block had been poured on in 1971. The pilings and the rating system and the full-risk rate all came after.
He went to bed. She was on her side, facing the window. He couldn't tell if she was asleep.
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The sea was higher: A landmark Nature study published this month found that roughly 90% of coastal hazard assessments underestimated baseline sea levels by an average of one foot, meaning exposure thresholds for communities like Galveston may be reached far sooner than projected.
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Who's actually insured: Despite widespread flood exposure across Texas, only about 7% of homes carry flood insurance as of 2024, and American homeowners may be collectively underinsured by as much as $28.7 billion a year because their policies don't reflect actual climate risk.
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Connecticut's experiment: One state is trying something new — a public climate-risk mapping tool that lets residents see their property's estimated flood, wildfire, and wind exposure, powered by the same private risk-modeling firms that insurers use to set rates.
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Risk-based pricing tradeoffs: A Nature Climate Change paper published this month frames the policy dilemma underneath calls like Greg's, finding that allowing insurance prices to reflect property-specific risk offers actuarial benefits but may cause serious unintended consequences as coverage declines in the communities most exposed.