Treasury Department Insurance Data Vital to Understand Climate Impacts on Homeowners

January 8, 2025

Treasury Department Insurance Data Vital to Understand Climate Impacts on Homeowners

More than 43,000 individuals call on Federal Insurance Office to release vital data and report on climate change

WASHINGTON - Months after the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Insurance Office (FIO) collected and analyzed data on climate change's impacts on insurance markets across the country, more than 43,000 individuals have called for the data and report to be released today.

The petition, collected by Public Citizen, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Consumer Reports, Green America, and others, calls on the Treasury Department to release granular data on property insurance collected from more than 300 insurers.

"As communities across the country risk losing their insurance, tens of thousands of people are now demanding the Treasury Department release the data it has on this crisis," said Rick Morris, insurance campaigner with Public Citizen's Climate Program. "The Federal Insurance Office should not continue to drag its feet on releasing information vital to understanding this unfolding insurance crisis. The public needs this information from out of the shadows. Solutions to our climate-driven property insurance crisis must start with more transparency."

In December, Public Citizen led a coalition of organizationsurging the U.S. Treasury's Federal Insurance Office to publish nationwide homeowners insurance data collected by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) from approximately 330 insurers, representing over 80% of the property and casualty market.

The calls for releasing the data come after a March 2024 decision by FIO to reverse course on a plan approved by the Office of Management and Budget to collect data from insurance companies, instead saying the office would accept an anonymized subset of the data collected by the NAIC. Treasury's FIO confirmed in December that NAIC shared that subset, which it was supposed to have received by the end of September 2024.

Additional quotes:

"Consumers are seeing home insurance rates double from the previous year with no explanation--they hadn't made a claim, and live in areas considered 'climate-safe' and nowhere near a flood zone. Some insurance companies are pulling out of certain regions altogether, leaving customers high and dry. The first step in solving this crisis is getting data from insurance companies to see where the biggest problems around access and affordability lie," - Alexandra Grose, senior policy counsel for Consumer Reports

"Homeowners pay for insurance because they believe their insurance companies will protect them when disaster strikes. Far too often, homeowners end up footing the bill when their insurers unfairly deny claims, raise rates astronomically, and withdraw coverage altogether. Climate change is a major factor for insurance cost increases, and we need more transparency from insurers to better understand exactly how much of their climate financial risk they're pushing onto consumers in exchange for profits. The Treasury's FIO and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners must publicly release their first-of-a-kind data collection so the public can better understand what decisions insurance companies are making. Rising insurance prices make it harder for families to make ends meet so the incoming Trump administration should support this annual data collection as well as community-driven policy solutions to address rising costs and declining coverage of homeowners insurance." - Jessica Garcia, senior policy analyst for climate finance at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund

"Our members across the country are paying ever higher rates for property insurance-and that's when they can even get insurance if they live in a climate-vulnerable area. Yet instead of addressing the climate crisis behind these increased costs, big insurance companies are insuring and investing in its chief cause-the burning of fossil fuels. The least the Federal Insurance Office could do is release the data it has gathered about insurance company practices, so we can hold them accountable." - Cathy Becker, responsible finance campaign director at Green America

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