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As Insurers Retreat, the Hamptons Becomes a Test Case for Climate Risk

Record home prices and retreating carriers in America’s premier coastal market are two readings of the same instrument. Insurance is repricing the coastline first, and family balance sheets are absorbing the difference.

It has never been more expensive to buy into the Hamptons. In late 2025, the median sales price hit a record $2.34 million, with sales above $10 million soaring 75 percent from the previous year. On paper, one of America’s most climate-exposed luxury markets has never looked stronger, even as the risks beneath it continue to grow. 

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The same coastline looks starkly different when viewed through the eyes of an insurance broker. National and regional carriers have stopped writing new homeowner coverage in eastern Suffolk County and, increasingly, across Long Island. “In terms of underwriting, this is the worst market I’ve experienced,” Dermot Dolan of Hamptons Risk Management in Bridgehampton, a 30-year industry veteran, told The Southampton Press in November 2024. New York’s stopgap, the Coastal Market Assistance Program (C-MAP), now serves as a last resort for homeowners whose carriers have withdrawn coverage. Data from the Senate Budget Committee published in December 2024 lay bare the trend. Out of the 100 U.S. counties with the highest home insurance non-renewal rates in 2023, 82 were coastal or wildfire-prone. The underlying message could not be clearer. Climate risk is no longer........

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