If you live in a state that suffers from severe weather such as tornadoes or hurricanes, finding good homeowners insurance is getting more difficult as weather patterns grow more extreme.

In the aftermath of weather-related catastrophes, insurers can face a flood of insurance claims and as a result of the expense eventually drop thousands of policies. For example, Alabama-based insurance company Alfa announced in June that it wouldn't renew 73,000 home policies after tornadoes battered the state in April. After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, insurance giant State Farm stopped writing new policies in Mississippi. And following more recent hurricanes, 20 percent of homes on the Alabama coast are going without any wind insurance due to staggering rate increases. The state's four largest insurance companies have canceled 50,000 policies in coastal Alabama, according to Carl Schneider, partner at Schneider Insurance and member of the Coastal Alabama Leadership Council, or CALC.

Read more:

 

---