Federal Insurance Office proposes collection of insurers' climate-related data
General guidelines of the proposal state that underwriting data should be reported for all of the 41,000-plus U.S. ZIP codes in which an insurer writes business.
The United States Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) has proposed a rule that would allow the collection of climate-related financial risk data from property and casualty insurers.
General guidelines of the proposal released by the FIO state that both current and historical underwriting data should be reported for all of the 41,000-plus U.S. ZIP codes in which an insurer writes business. The data collected would be associated with homeowners’ multi-peril lines of business, and include mobile homeowners’, owner-occupied homeowners’ and other homeowners’ policy form types (HO-1, HO-2, HO-3, HO-5, HO-7 and HO-8).
The information collected would concern only weather-related hazards and the damage they cause to dwellings, other structures and personal property. It would not include data related to personal liability, medical payments or additional living expenses. Data about earthquake coverage would also be excluded.
“Today’s action by the Federal Insurance Office is an important step in determining how Americans are being affected by the increasing costs of climate change,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen said in a release announcing the proposed rule on October 18, 2022. “The recent impacts in Florida from Hurricane Ian demonstrate the critical nature of this work and the need for an increased understanding of insurance market vulnerabilities in the United States. FIO’s data collection will add to the work of regulators and policymakers across the Administration to assess climate-related risks to the financial system, the U.S. economy, and the American people.”
More information about the proposed rule from the FIO, as well as how members of the public can submit relevant commentary about the proposal can be found here.