In Wake of California’s Wildfires, Van Hollen, Wyden, and Colleagues Call on Treasury Department to Swiftly Publish Data about Impact of Climate Crisis on Homeowners Insurance

U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) joined Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and six of their Senate colleagues urged the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Federal Insurance Office (FIO) to immediately publish data and analysis about how the climate crisis impacts homeowners insurance nationwide. They were joined in sending the letter by Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). They also called for the data to be shared with the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which includes key federal and state financial regulators whose decisions about housing and insurance policy could be shaped by insights from this data.

In the letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and FIO Director Steven Seitz, the senators underscored, "Gathering this data is important because natural disasters made worse by climate change are squeezing homeowners and insurance companies nationwide. Public access to this data can help us better understand this crisis of affordability and availability."

Making information public about the homeowners insurance market, including premium and rate increases and market withdrawals, would ensure Congress, FSOC, researchers, policymakers, and the public are better prepared for future climate-related risks. Also, publishing and examining this data is critical to understanding the growing crisis of homeowners insurance being less affordable and accessible. Families and communities nationwide, including those in regions that are less vulnerable to climate-related disasters, are increasingly struggling to afford or even access home insurance.

The senators stressed, "Failing to publish this data will prevent informed decisions and implementation of impactful policy changes that can help communities and households live and grow in a more climate-resilient manner. Piecemeal data kept privately will not aid our efforts to address the growing national issue of homeowner insurance availability and affordability, especially as disparate policies and climate events throughout the country have devastated communities and will continue to do so."

"Homeowners need this data to understand how much climate change is going to increase their insurance costs. Policymakers need the data to hold insurers accountable and to chart a more resilient path forward," said Kelsey Condon, Policy Counsel for Climate Finance at Americans for Financial Reform. "Right now, insurers are dropping long-time customers left and right and people need to know if it's going to happen to them next. There is no reason the government should be withholding this information from the public and we hope that the Treasury Department seizes this closing window of opportunity."

The letter text is available here and below:

Dear Secretary Yellen and Director Seitz:

Thank you for leading the property and casualty market data call to collect nationwide zip codelevel data on homeowners insurance. Gathering this data is important because natural disasters made worse by climate change are squeezing homeowners and insurance companies nationwide. Public access to this data can help us better understand this crisis of affordability and availability. We urge you to make this data public immediately, and to share the data with all members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to ensure the FSOC is prepared to respond to climate-related risks in the home insurance market. Publishing this aggregated, de-identified data will inform Congress, our constituents and other policymakers about changes in the home insurance market and help us all prepare for future climate impacts.

This data, and the Federal Insurance Office's (FIO) assessment of this data, are both essential to understanding the growing crisis of home insurance affordability and access. Families and communities across the country are struggling, even in areas with relatively low climate vulnerability, to find home insurance coverage that's affordable-or that's offered at all. But understanding and responding to consumer- and insurer-level risk and exposure in order to mitigate these issues is impossible without national, state, and local level data. The data needed for this analysis - the data collected by FIO under its unique statutory mandate to monitor issues in the insurance market that could present systemic risk or prevent underserved consumers from accessing insurance- is not available anywhere else. To this end, we request that you immediately:

1. Publicly release the anonymized data in as close to the same format and with the same detail as collected by FIO, to the extent legally possible;
2. Share this data with all FSOC member agencies, and to any state and federal agencies that request this information, in compliance with any state and federal confidentiality requirements; and 3. Promptly publish FIO's initial analysis of the data regarding the climate impacts on homeowners insurance affordability and availability.

If Treasury and FIO fail to publish even an analysis of this data, consumers and local governments will continue to lack the information they need to identify trends and factors driving the cost of home insurance. Failing to publish this data will prevent informed decisions and implementation of impactful policy changes that can help communities and households live and grow in a more climate-resilient manner. Piecemeal data kept privately will not aid our efforts to address the growing national issue of homeowner insurance availability and affordability, especially as disparate policies and climate events throughout the country have devastated communities and will continue to do so.

To protect our constituents, and the financial stability of the insurance markets and state and local governments, the public, researchers, advocates, and policymakers must have access to this data. The Federal Insurance Office was created, and is uniquely able, to provide this benefit to the public. Please do not let this data call go to waste.

Sincerely,