Lenders won't let you close on a home if you can't get coverage, no matter what the premium cost. Also, homes are less attractive as an investment if they come with prohibitively high homeowners insurance, limited coverage or coverage of last resort.

Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, for example, created in 2002 as insurance of last resort is now the second-largest insurer in the state carrying 70 percent of Miami-Dade County policies alone. Costs for the special coverage are higher than market rates to keep the government-sponsored entity non-competitive. Last year's hurricanes forced the state Legislature to bail Citizens out of the red. This summer the operation expects to become the largest homeowners' insurer in the Sunshine State, after two big back-to-back hurricane seasons.

Likewise, the National Flood Insurance Program and the California's Earthquake Authority in California are the only insurers that offer coverage for those events and the coverage is either expensive or stripped down or both. If a flood or earthquake takes your home, there's a chance it's value could exceed coverage limits.

And it's not just insurance to replace your home, but its contents, personal injury and coverage that pays for temporary shelter where you can hunker down while your home is being rebuilt.

The National Association of Realtors, in written testimony delivered to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity on June 28, said you'll pay for the cost of disasters again and again if a bad one hits and too many homeowners lack adequate coverage.

NAR supports legislation that would create a national disaster insurance program to offer affordable insurance and reduce circumstances under which insurance companies cancel policies.

"Options for obtaining and maintaining coverage for natural disasters are dwindling," said Thomas M. Stevens NAR president.

"America's hard-working families deserve a comprehensive federal natural disaster policy. If the 'big one' hits, and people are not insured, then the American taxpayer will pay the price," said Thomas M. Stevens, NAR president.

Go to the back of the line behind Social Security, immigration and the Iraq War for any such "national" attention.

Washington isn't paying attention now -- to either global warming or homeowners insurance -- so plan on paying through the nose later.