The politics of global warming have typically involved much debate as to the role climate change plays in growing weather-related risk.  Yesterday, however, at a Capital Hill a press conference on the cost of climate change, debate was not on the agenda. Pointing to a year of history-making, 1 billion-plus natural disasters, representatives of Tier 1 insurance companies took a definitive stance with members of the U.S. Senate to confirm that costs to taxpayers and businesses from extreme weather will continue to soar because of climate change.

Representatives from The Reinsurance Association of America, Swiss Re and Willis Re and Ceres, a nonprofit organization that leads a national coalition of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies to address a variety of sustainability challenges, joined Sens. Read more…

Studies of climate change and its impact on coastal communities usually focus on rising sea level. Now, scientists from MIT and Princeton University have developed a method to examine how multiple effects of climate change – including the combination of sea-level rise and stronger hurricanes — will affect storm surges that wash over sea walls and inundate communities, damaging buildings and infrastructure.

As a demonstration of the new technique, the scientists quantified how hurricane storm surges would affect New York City. They found that coupled with climate change, there would be a dramatic increase in the annual risk of so-called “100-year events” that have a 1 percent risk of occurring in any given year. As th Read more…

The Consumer Federation of America is attacking home insurers for holding too much capital and avoiding business in risk-prone regions, charging that property-casualty companies have “hollowed out” catastrophe coverage.

In response, the head of the major industry trade group charged that CFA is dead wrong and is ignorant of all that happened in 2011 when it comes to storm coverage.

The back-and-forth is part of a long-running debate about what insurers should be required to cover, at what price and under what conditions.

The Consumer federation issued a report this week saying insurers in the property-casualty industry decreased their financial responsibility for hurricanes and other catastrophes, in part by by implementing deductibles as high as 5 percent of a home’s value, and by increasing premiums.

The CFA report also criticizes insurers for being over capitalized. Read more…

- A potential inside-the-Beltway equivalent of a best-seller at least for some people is likely to roll off the presses in the next few weeks.

Unlike, say, the latest from John Grisham, this volume won’t cost its readers a cent other than their share of whatever tax money goes into its production.

The long-anticipated publication, at least long anticipated among some in the insurance industry, is the Federal Insurance Office’s report on modernizing and improving insurance regulation. Read more…