NAIC to Ask for Data to Better Understand Property-Market Availability, Affordability

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said at its Summer National Meeting that it plans to collect data from insurers in order to help insurance regulators better understand property markets, especially when it comes to availability affordability.

“The increasing frequency and severity of weather events, rising reinsurance costs, and inflationary pressures are making property insurance availability and affordability more challenging for a growing number of regions across the U.S.,” the NAIC said in a statement last week. “These dynamics can vary within a relatively small geographic area, so while a state’s property insurance market may be generally healthy overall, there can be localized protection gaps that challenge certain communities.”

While acknowledging that state regulators have robust financial data to assess insurers’ solvency and investments, the NAIC said states may lack the kind of data to gauge the availability and affordability of insurance for consumers. The NAIC had previously adopted a measure for the group’s Property and Casualty Insurance Committee to develop property-market intelligence to identify coverage gaps, changes in deductibles, changes in coverage types, and availability and affordability.

Under Alan McClain, commissioner of the Arkansas Insurance Department and chair of the NAIC committee, insurance regulators of at least 30 states have started work to identify where data is lacking, and it intends to develop a data template with the goal of establishing “a long-term, robust data collection strategy to help regulators more nimbly respond to inquiries related to their property markets versus a one-time data call.”