The deeply intertwined crises of climate change, insurance premium increases and cancellations, and housing inequality are escalating. State insurance regulators cannot address these problems alone, but their role in exacerbating or ameliorating them deserves further scrutiny.
On September 26, Hurricane Helen, one of the most recent storms intensified by the fossil-fuel climate crisis, made landfall in Florida and moved across the Southeast, causing extensive flooding, particularly in western North Carolina. Helen was one of the deadliest and most destructive hurricanes in U.S. history, but it took more than a week for fresh and meaningful coverage to appear in national newspapers from insurance regulators in affected states.
The prescient Grist article from Sept. 24, “Climate Change Impacts Focus on Insurance Commissioner Race,” was reprinted by Inside Climate News on Sept. 29, as well as most of the original media coverage. contained preliminary updates on the severity and condition of the damage. Immediate response from authorities and recommendations on how to get help and avoid scams. At the local level, it is understandable that such minimal reporting occurs immediately after a disaster occurs. After all, people are in survival mode and aren’t necessarily looking for an in-depth analysis of different approaches to the home insurance crisis. That said, there were some notable exceptions where local news outlets dug deep into how existing and ambitious state regulators are working to destabilize the home insurance market.
Nationally, Newsweek on Oct. 4 reported on some of the impacts recently enacted insurance “reforms” will have on Floridians after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis took millions of dollars from the insurance industry. We have published an article detailing the department. In addition to making it harder for homeowners to sue their insurance companies, the DeSantis-led overhaul will force participants in Citizens, the state insurer of last resort, to switch to much more expensive private insurance. was forced to. As Newsweek noted, Florida Insurance Commissioner Michael Jaworski approved the transfer of hundreds of thousands of Citizen policies to private companies in the weeks leading up to the Herren incident.
On October 7, The Guardian reported that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris had each visited Georgia in the aftermath of Helen. In the article, Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King was reported to have “challenged the political meaning of Harris’ promise of 100% federal reimbursement.” To do so would require appropriations that have not yet been made, essentially daring House Speaker Mike Johnson to veto them. “This is political blackmail,” he said.
The same day, the Associated Press reported that North Carolina public hearings on the Prechelen proposal, which would allow insurance companies to raise homeowners’ insurance premiums by 42% statewide and 99% in coastal areas, will proceed without delay. On October 9, the New York Times published an article about North Carolina’s insurance commissioner election, which received further national coverage. As the newspaper reported, the chaos caused by Herren and the aforementioned proposal that would have allowed significant interest rate hikes led to Republican incumbent Mike Causey and Democratic challenger Natasha, who were elected in 2016 and 2020. The close stakes between Mr. Marcus and Mr. Marcus have become clear.
Many Americans probably don’t know that the insurance industry is primarily regulated at the state level, thanks to an obscure 1945 law called the McCarran-Ferguson Act. As Jordan Hetler and I explained in a report published earlier this year, we heard about the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), the private industry group to which state-level insurance regulators belong and have their marching orders. Even fewer people have it. . The deeply intertwined crises of climate change, insurance premium increases and cancellations, and housing inequality are escalating. State insurance regulators cannot tackle these problems alone, but their role in exacerbating or ameliorating them deserves further scrutiny.
My colleagues Fatou Ndiaye and Jacob Plaza have provided information on all 56 state-level insurance regulators (50 states plus D.C., American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands). Helped me compile this database containing. At this time, it only includes information about elections, appointments, notable roles of commissioners in the NAIC, and professional backgrounds (many come from the insurance industry, where they currently have regulatory duties, and many have returned to the insurance industry after retirement). ), sometimes including links to important media hits. This tracker will be updated regularly.
Notably, the aforementioned Times article comes on the same day that Hurricane Milton, another storm fueled by global warming pollution, hit western Florida. It was posted before I even had a chance to evaluate it.
National media coverage of state insurance commissioners needs to be better (i.e., more consistent and critical) so that the public understands the important role that state insurance commissioners play.
The photo above by Bill McMannis is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
