Insurance policyholder advocates believe reinsurance program is needed amid insurer pullbacks
Millions of Americans are squaring up to a homeowners’ insurance affordability and availability crisis, aided by climate change impacts, and legislators are set to grapple with whether a federal reinsurance backstop that has garnered insurance industry opposition could offer a solution.
Representative Adam Schiff’s Incorporating National Support for Unprecedented Risks and Emergencies (INSURE) Act, introduced as a Bill in early January, will test the waters over whether legislators believe a government-led $50 billion reinsurance program could cut homeowners’ and property insurance costs for policyholders in a hard market and encourage capacity back into states, like California and Florida, that have so far borne the brunt of constrictions and exits.
Under the bill, the federal property reinsurance program would offer cover for wind and hurricane, flood, wildfire, and severe convective storm. Feasibility studies into bundling in earthquake cover, in addition to relocation funding, are also mooted.
The INSURE Act could “put families at risk of losing access to the coverage they need,” American Property and Casualty Insurance Association