Washington, D.C.— Twenty consumer and housing organizations called on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to be more transparent about its homeowners insurance data call, agree to make the data available to the public, and begin collecting this and more data on a regular basis. In a letter to these state insurance regulators, the organizations are seeking clarity about the current data call, including a list of states that are participating and those that have refused to collect data.
“As Americans try to navigate the insurance market’s skyrocketing prices and diminished coverage offerings, and as they face insurer withdrawals from regions in which climate change driven losses and risk threaten family finances and community economies, policymakers and researchers find very little public data available to help interpret and address this crisis,” the advocates wrote. “With your data call, we hope an era of open data has begun. Public safety and trillions of dollars of family assets, as well as the whole of the American economy, have a stake in making sure we get this right.”
In March 2024 the NAIC announced that insurance regulators had agreed to participate in this data call to collect information about homeowners insurance for the years 2018 through 2022. This project is in response to a previously approved data collection effort by the Federal Insurance Office (FIO), which agreed not to collect the data from insurers when the NAIC announced its effort.
“In order to address the property insurance crisis, the public needs access to granular data about the market,” said CFA’s Research and Advocacy Associate Michael DeLong. “Not only should NAIC be more transparent about the current data call, it should also commit to ongoing data collection, and the Federal Insurance Office should be prepared to use its data collection authority where the NAIC effort falls short.”
“Climate-driven insurance disruptions are causing major pain for households around the country and have been acknowledged as a major threat to financial stability. In order for officials to get a handle on this crisis, we must have thorough and publicly available data,” said Jordan Haedtler, Climate Finance Specialist at Climate Cabinet. “The data being collected by FIO and the NAIC is an essential step toward state policymakers implementing FIO’s recommendations for stronger climate risk supervision. That data must be available in a way that can shape informed public policymaking.”
“As the current property insurance crisis threatens the financial health of American families, communities, and our national economy, state insurance commissioners are failing to ensure that the public and policymakers have access to information needed to secure their safety,” said Anne Perrault, Senior Climate Finance Policy Council at Public Citizen. “While insurers continued their unprecedented rate hikes, reductions in homeowner coverage, and withdrawals in 2023, the NAIC data collection effort inexplicably proposes, for example, to collect a mere portion of critical data for only the 2018-2022 period, and to keep collected data from the American public. FIO and NAIC owe it to the American public to provide a comprehensive transparent data collection effort.”
In addition to seeking clarity on the scope of the data call and highlighting the importance of public access, the groups are urging regulators to expand data collection in the future. In particular, they say, the NAIC should collect data regarding insurance for manufactured housing, condo and co-op owners, tenants, and affordable housing developers. Data should also be collected on each state’s market of last resort (including FAIR Plans and Citizens Insurance companies) as well the “force-placed” insurance that lenders take out and charge to homeowners who drop their coverage.
“The NAIC and FIO have initiated a process by which regulators, policymakers, researchers, and the public can gain desperately needed insights into America’s property insurance market and the crisis it is stirring up for communities across the nation. It is critical that the data collected not stay hidden from view and unavailable for independent analysis,” the groups wrote.