Insuring Homes in High Lava Hazard Areas

Now that Kilauea Volcano has destroyed hundreds of homes in Puna, some are asking how people were able to purchase and insure homes in such a known high-risk area. Keli’i Akina is the President and CEO of the Grassroots Institute of Hawaii, and earlier this morning we spoke about the government-backed insurance program, the Hawaii Property Insurance Association, that made many of those home purchases possible. We began by looking at the background to the 1991 measure that created the HPIA.