The Treasury Department announced that it was proposing a new rule that would gather climate risk data from home insurance companies.
The proposed changes, which were posted in a Federal Register notice on Oct. 18, require that property and casualty insurers provide data on climate change-related risks, in order to better prepare financial regulations for global warming.The Federal Insurance Office, which is part of the Treasury, said that it was seeking public comment on the proposal.
The new program will collect contemporary and historical underwriting data on homeowners’ insurance using zip code-level data.
This would give the government’s insurance office “consistent, granular, and comparable insurance data needed to help assess the potential for major disruptions of private insurance coverage in regions of the country that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”
Treasury claims that the data would help it assess both the availability and affordability of home insurance for citizens in areas of the country vulnerable to climate change disruptions.Climate Change Regulations And Hurricane Season Risks
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been pushing financial regulators to make climate change risks a regular part of their assessments, after President Joe Biden signed an executive order in May 2021, requesting studies of climate-related financial risks.Yellen also demanded that insurance companies increase disclosures of climate risks to investors from now on.
