California is one of the three states, along with New York and Washington, that has initiated the joint administration of a survey asking all insurance companies writing more than $300 million in direct written premium to discuss the steps they are taking to address climate change.

"California's size, proximity to the coast and other environmental features make us particularly concerned about the impact climate change has on catastrophic events and insurance losses in this state," says Geoff Margolis, deputy commissioner and special counsel to California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. "Because of that, as a regulator, Commissioner Jones believes it is necessary to query the insurance industry about what it is doing to consider the impact of climate change. As a regulator, it is important to make efforts to ensure that consumers have insurance, and taking climate change into consideration is important in achieving that goal. We don't want to wake up one day and not have available and affordable insurance for California consumers, so we need to be asking the questions at this time to analyze the impact of climate change, and then we can consider appropriate steps to help protect the insurance market."