A pilot program in Plymouth hopes to crack the code on insurance in coastal communities
Rising sea levels driven by climate change are threatening to upend home insurance in areas along the state’s shoreline
The insurance challenge for coastal states like Massachusetts has been a vexing one. Inflation and tariffs are scrambling rebuilding costs, and the rise in climate-driven natural disasters has contributed to a recent increase in private insurers not renewing policies and the state’s insurer-of-last-resort seeing a growth in the number of enrollees.

THE CODCAST
Massachusetts’s dwindling maternity care
This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Hallie Claflin talks with Alecia McGregor, assistant professor of health policy and politics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Katie Murphy, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. They dig into the consequences of recent maternity unit closures in Springfield and Methuen, discuss where Massachusetts stands in terms of maternal health care access, and detail what power the state has, if any, to regulate health service closures and consolidations.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Commonwealth in depth
The Dean of Massachusetts mayors
Leominster bills itself as ‘a city on the move,’ but it hasn’t elected a new mayor in more than three decades
BY THE NUMBERS
Yet again, legislative competition in Massachusetts will be woeful
Three in five House, Senate races will feature only one candidate on the ballot
From the Archives
On Heritage Road
In the heart of suburbia, anxieties about the new economy
