They additionally urged FIO to start gathering insurance coverage knowledge on these weak communities, together with insurance policies masking renters, customers depending on insurers of final resort, and climate-related perils like wildfires and wind which can be turning into “increasingly excluded” from normal protection. Furthermore, they requested that this info be printed as soon as correctly collected.
The teams that signed the letter embody Public Citizen, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, Hip Hop Caucus, and National Housing Resource Center.
“The insurance industry has spent decades fueling the climate crisis through investments and underwriting,” stated Carly Fabian, coverage advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “As the climate crisis intensifies, the industry is forcing the most vulnerable consumers to foot the bill by raising premiums, reducing coverage, and abandoning entire communities.”
Fabian defined that the insurance coverage business’s “uniquely opaque regulatory system” has left customers unaware of “discriminatory practices,” in addition to its local weather change response. With FIO having been created with the authority to gather knowledge from insurers, it ought to use this knowledge to “highlight a national insurance affordability crisis,” she stated.
In addition to the letter, a petition pushing the FIO to gather ZIP Code stage knowledge from property and casualty insurers was signed by greater than 9,000 people.
The petition particularly known as for transparency in present and historic underwriting of householders’ insurance coverage.
“Access to insurance is essential for me and my community’s financial and emotional security,” the petition stated. “If insurance becomes unaffordable or unavailable in my community, this crisis could threaten our homes, life savings, and local economies. My community needs urgent solutions to address this growing crisis.”
Both the letter and petition had been penned in response to FIO’s proposal to gather knowledge from insurers in an effort to consider local weather dangers within the US and inform assessments for potential main disruptions of personal insurance coverage.