CHARLESTON — The Bank of South Carolina’s primary insurance carrier didn’t want to cover wind damage at all on the bank’s main Meeting Street office.

But the carrier finally agreed to raise the price of the insurance by more than 100 percent with a 10 percent deductible for named storms.

Fortunately, the bank was able to find other coverage, said Hugh Lane Jr., bank president.

Lane offered the anecdote last week as an example of what is happening with both business and residential insurance coverage along South Carolina’s coast.

He was speaking on a panel about how rising seas and storms could affect coastal property, health and quality of life.

The panel was part of a Southeast regional meeting — The Nation’s Coasts: A Vision and Action Agenda for the Future — part of a three-year effort by The Heinz Center of Washington, D.C., to help communities address coastal issues.

The insurance industry is paying attention to climate change and to increased storm activity, and that is translating into skyrocketing premiums from Hilton Head to Little River.

Premiums for single-family residences along the Grand Strand have seen 100 percent increases and condominiums have seen up to 700 percent increases, according to research by Al Parish, an economist at Charleston Southern University.

Parish blames that increase partly for a drop in housing prices in the area, especially condominiums.

Rising insurance costs also have been blamed for part of the dramatic drop in home sales on Hilton Head Island. Sales were down 40 percent over last year and prices dropped 6 percent.

While climate change and global warming have plenty of skeptics, said state Insurance Director Eleanor Kitzman, “the insurance industry believes in this issue and it is affecting the way they do business — which affects the citizens of South Carolina and the economy of this state and that gets my attention.”

Not only are premiums increasing dramatically, she said, but the availability of insurance is not keeping pace with the demand because of the continuing growth in coastal areas.

The issue has been brewing since the early 1990s with hurricanes Hugo and Andrew. But the real tipping points for the insurance industry were the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Kitzman said.

Insurers are canceling policies, reducing coverage, increasing deductibles and taking “other measures that are considered very draconian by consumer standards,” she said.

“The impact of this issue extends beyond rich people at the beach to people who live in such places as Hardeeville, Goose Creek and Conway,” Kitzman said.

“And they don’t have lifestyles, They have jobs. They have jobs in businesses and industries that impact and benefit the economy of this entire state.”

For example, BMW — one of the Upstate’s premier employers — likely wouldn’t be in South Carolina without access to the Port of Charleston, she said, “and those people have to live somewhere.”

South Carolina cannot abandon the coast, she said. People are going to continue to live on the coast and coastal development does not seem likely to abate anytime soon.

But the supply of insurance — at any cost — doesn’t seem likely to keep up with the demand. New capital simply isn’t being attracted into the market, even at higher premiums.

“The private sector has spoken very clearly,” Kitzman said, “and that is that they are writing all of the coastally-exposed business that they care to right now.”

If the private sector can’t or won’t fill the need, Lane said, government might need to provide some kind of backstop.

Because of the importance of the coast to the overall economy, public policy makers might need to consider taking action, said Kitzman, even though she is generally not in favor of government intervention.

“It is a public policy consideration that needs to be made,” she said, “and not for the purpose of displacing or competing with the private insurance market, but to the extent that the private insurance industry cannot meet the full need.”

C. Grant Jackson was the moderator for the session on The Impact of Rising Seas and Storms on Human Infrastructure: Property, Health and Quality of Life.