NU Online News Service, Feb. 3, 12:00 p.m. EST

If insurers were hopeful that at the least their mandatory responses to the Climate Risk Survey required in three states would remain confidential they will be very disappointed to discover that won't be the case.

The results of the survey that will be administered this year in California and New York will be made public, officials in the insurance departments say.

A spokeswoman for the Insurance Department in Washington State says the state hopes to make the results public, but details have not yet been worked out.

On Wednesday, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced that all three states would be issuing the mandatory climate survey this year, requiring companies with direct written premium of over $300 million to take part.

"This multi-state effort will not only seek to strengthen this survey, but also to ensure the results of the survey continue to be made public," Jones says in a statement. "The results should be that insurers can implement best practices and members of the public can study the impact on consumers."

Industry officials have argued that the companies replying to the survey should be kept confidential because of fear that some parties might use the information for legal action against a carrier.

David Kodama, senior director research for the Property Casualty Insurance Association of America explained that while the National Association of Insurance Commissioners recommended that the companies involved should remain confidential, and involvement should be voluntary, both California and New York are going contrary to that recommendation.

He says the fact that California and New York are requiring carriers to participate, and that the results will be made public "does not come as a surprise to us" because they are continuing with past practices. 

He adds, "However, we are concerned about the broader implications of the individual response being made public, especially to special interest groups that have their own agenda not consistent with the regulatory goals of solvency regulation and consumer protection," says Kodama.

He was also critical of New York for including insurers that are not domiciled there in the survey when the NAIC survey recommendations limit the participants to the group domiciled in the state. Such actions, he fears, will lead to additional information requests that contradict the NAIC's intent to make the survey efficient.

Correction: Comments of David Kodama were clarified to say that California and New York's decision to make the survey results public come as no surprise because the state is following past practices. A list linked to the NAIC was also removed because it does not reflect all insurers with $300 million in Direct Written Premium writing insurance in the individual states.