Published: January 2023

Groups urge Federal Insurance Office to strengthen its proposed climate data collection

Consumer Action and 75 other consumer groups wrote to the Department of the Treasury to ask that the Federal Insurance Office strengthen its proposed climate data collection in an effort to ascertain how climate change is impacting access to affordable insurance for underserved communities.

Weather-related disasters have left millions of consumers entirely without insurance or with only the option of expensive state insurance, as private insurers drop customers in higher-risk areas to protect the companies’ profits. Due to a history of racist policies and underinvestment, climate risks like flooding and wildfires disproportionately harm minority and low-income communities. The combination of a climate crisis and an insurance industry retreat could create an affordability crisis that threatens Americans’ homes, life savings, and the economies of already vulnerable regions. Consumer Action and 75 allies wrote to the Department of the Treasury to urge its Federal Insurance Office (FIO) to broaden its proposed data collection on how climate change affects the cost and availability of insurance, particularly for underserved communities. In particular, the FIO should collect data on renters insurance, force-placed insurance and claims delays, which can function as denials for underserved communities; collect data on insurers of last resort and on climate impacts that are not always covered by standard insurance policies, like wildfire and wind; publish granular data; and use the data to inform the recommendations regulators make to insurers.

Lead Organization

Public Citizen

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Click here to read the letter.

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