Industry Trades Applaud New FIO-NAIC Partnership on Data Collection

The U.S. Treasury late last week backed off a plan to have the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) collect data on climate-related risks from property/casualty insurers—an outcome that had been sought by the insurance industry since the proposal was published in October 2022.

FIO will instead coordinate with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners state insurance commissioners to collect the data.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Association said it was “pleased” the FIO and NAIC agreed to coordinate efforts.

“Duplicate data calls are unnecessary and ultimately increase consumer costs,” said Nat Wienecke, APCIA senior vice president of federal government relations and Adam Shores, senior vice president of state government relations, in a statement. Though the association and is “encouraged” by this new direction, Wienecke and Shores said it is “still reviewing the details and may seek additional clarification.”

Related: US Treasury Drops Plan to Collect Insurer Data on Climate Risks

Jimi Grande, senior vice president of federal and political affairs for National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), said it a statement that the announcement set a precedent because it recognized state regulators “should lead any data collection from insurers.”

“State regulators have examined the critical impact of climate change on insurance markets and consumers for over a decade and continue to do so,” said Grande. “Agreements between the states and FIO will help ensure that state regulators, who best understand what is needed, collect climate-related data. It will also insulate their effort from federal intrusion on state-based insurance regulation.

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NAMIC believes maintaining FIO’s role as a resource, rather than a regulator, can help prevent the threat of unnecessary and duplicative collections in the future,” Grande added.

Similarly, the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) commended the FIO-NAIC collaboration.

“Insurance companies are committed to finding solutions for how we can predict and prevent property damage from natural disasters, as well as keeping costs of coverage at competitive levels,” said Triple-I President and CEO Sean Kevelighan, in a statement. “Data calls are time-consuming and expensive. A unified collection of data will help make this a more efficient process.”

APCIA and NAMIC, as well as the Association for Independent Agents (Big I), and National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA), also support the Insurance Data Protection Act, introduced in September 2023. It addresses FIO’s data-collection power. Grande said the measure is meant to “rein in FIO’s unique and troublesome subpoena powers.”