"Insurance commissioners in California, New York and Washington State will require that companies disclose how they intend to respond to the risks their businesses and customers face from increasingly severe storms and wildfires, rising sea levels and other consequences of climate change, California’s commissioner said Wednesday."
"Up until this point, those states required about a third of larger insurers to turn over the information in a survey; for all others it was voluntary.
“Our experience and other states’ experience as regulators is you get a far better response rate if you require response to be provided than if you just allow companies to decide when and how they will respond,” said Dave Jones, the California commissioner. “Our goal is to have the most complete, best and accurate information possible for investors, the insurance industry, regulators and the broader public.”
California, which has the ninth-largest economy in the world, has led the way on this push to make a traditionally backward-looking industry anticipate and respond to the business liability presented by a changing climate. These new state regulations will focus attention on the insurance industry’s role in mediating the country’s response to climate change."
Felicity Barringer reports for the New York Times February 2, 2012.
Advertisement 
