06/01/2026
As Louisiana's average home insurance climbs above $5,000 per year, families are feeling the strain of a market still reeling from the devastating 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons.
🌀 As we enter hurricane season, CC&E's Paul Miller takes a look at how coastal science research may help to lower insurance costs, by making meaningful advances that help protect the state from future losses.
🏠 Drs. Robert Rohli and Nazla Bushra have helped quantify the financial benefits of flood mitigation.
Their work, which includes team members from the LSU AgCenter, demonstrates that incorporating "freeboard"—the elevation of a home above the base flood level—serves as a wise investment rather than just an upfront cost.
🖥️ CC&E's Z. George Xue is pioneering the use of "Digital Twins" and AI-driven forecasting which can be used to design life-saving coastal infrastructure.
🌩️ Drs. Paul Miller and Robert Twilley serve critical roles with LSU’s Coastal Emergency Risks Assessment (CERA) platform, which is used by state officials to determine which surge barriers and flood gates should be activated in advance of imminent hurricane landfalls.
🌊Hydrodynamic modeling and wave monitoring by CC&E experts like Drs. Chunyan Li and Haosheng Huang can help ground insurance premiums with data-driven practices.
📡 In the LSU Earth Scan Laboratory, Emeritus Professor Dr. Nan Walker tracks the Loop Current and warm-core eddies.
By embracing its commitment to “build teams that win for Louisiana and the world,” CC&E faculty continue to perform transformative research that help turn Louisiana’s coastal vulnerabilities into a transparent and manageable financial risk.
