ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses aspirational projects to minimise or eliminate cross-subsidisation in American and British flood insurance. My approach conceives of a cross-subsidy as a kind of imagined ‘flow,’ where resources seem to move around across insureds, as the revenue collected in one place makes it possible to continue building and living in another. In the United States, the latest effort to minimise cross-subsidies is framed as a technical achievement that will immediately realise more equitable conditions for policyholders. In the United Kingdom, a more gradual transition away from cross-subsidies is framed as a political achievement that will realise more prudent outcomes, redistributing responsibilities across individuals, the government, and the private market. Looking at the two cases together, I argue, illuminates a core contradiction at the heart of these aspirational projects as they are pursued in the context of climate change: namely, that addressing the flow that matters – the water that goes where it isn't wanted – will require flows of resources and responsibility no matter what. Eliminating cross-subsidisation does not eliminate social interdependence.
