House Financial Services lawmakers this week discussed a California wildfires aid package as one part of a federal response to a growing insurance crisis facing areas hit by natural disasters.
During Tuesday’s closed-door, bipartisan housing and insurance roundtable on the California wildfires, lawmakers discussed policies that possibly contributed to the situation, why insurance companies made decisions not to renew policies and what legislative action could be taken, according to some lawmakers who attended.
The meeting took place as lawmakers in both chambers try to figure out a solution to a worsening insurance market crisis where insurers are pulling out of certain regions and insurance coverage has become less available and more expensive in places with the highest expected losses from climate-related perils, as the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office reported in January.
Members on both sides of the aisle have thrown around potentially rolling other forms of disaster relief into the upcoming National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization on March 14. Republicans remain split on what the role of the federal government is in insurance.
