Kathleen Howley

About the author

Kathleen Howley is Bankrate’s principal reporter and analyst for flood, home and auto insurance. She holds a personal lines insurance license in Massachusetts.

Howley has more than two decades of experience as a financial journalist. Before joining Bankrate's insurance team, she was a senior reporter and columnist for Bloomberg News, a senior correspondent for Forbes, and a senior reporter covering personal finance for The Messenger, a beat that included the shifting landscape consumers face for home and car insurance.

Howley, a Boston native and granddaughter of Irish immigrants, won the 2008 Loeb Award and the New York Press Club’s Best Continuing Coverage Award for her reporting on the financial crisis.

When she's not working, Kathleen enjoys volunteering at her local school and hanging out with her kid and two puppies.

Kathleen wants you to know

When you signed your mortgage, you promised to maintain insurance on your home. If you lose coverage and can't find a quick alternative, ramifications include a requirement that you pay for expensive “force place” insurance aimed at protecting the lender’s interests. If you don't pay, you could lose your home. That's why climate change’s tectonic impact on insurance markets is an issue that doesn't just hit the budgets of American families – it can also impact their living situations and their net worth. In 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his insurance carrier suddenly canceled his home policy, forcing him to scramble to find a replacement at a time when the nation’s biggest insurers were leaving or limiting business in the state. Ultimately, he said he had to go with the state’s FAIR plan, a super-expensive alternative to standard policies that only covers catastrophic losses.