– Following calls by CR and other groups to make this data public, Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) releases what it calls “the most comprehensive data on homeowners insurance in history” as rates skyrocket and more policies are cancelled
– CR and other organizations delivered 43,000+ petition signatures to Treasury on January 8 to demand release of data
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) today released what the agency called “the most comprehensive data on homeowners insurance in history,” as well as a report showing that homeowners insurance is becoming, in FIO’s words, “more costly and harder to procure for millions of Americans as the costs of climate-related events pose growing challenges to insurers and their customers alike.”
Alexandra Grose, Senior Policy Counsel for Sustainability Policy at Consumer Reports (CR), said, “This is a critical first step in understanding why so many people across the country are seeing enormous increases in their home insurance premiums or having their coverage withdrawn altogether, and we applaud the FIO for publishing this analysis.
“Still, because states like Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Indiana, Montana and North Dakota reportedly declined to participate altogether, and Texas reportedly only provided partial data, we do not have a complete or comprehensive picture of where the homeowners insurance market currently stands. We are thrilled to see steps toward transparency on the part of the insurance companies, but there is much more work to be done to protect consumers,” Grose said.
The nonprofit Consumer Reports (CR) is part of a coalition of organizations that has been asking FIO to make this data public so stakeholders can find solutions to the growing home insurance crisis. Experts have cited different factors, including extreme weather linked to climate change, the impact of inflation on homebuilding, and the explosion of homes built in areas where fires, floods and other disasters are common.
On January 8th, CR joined with the groups Public Citizen, Green America, and Americans for Financial Reform to deliver a petition to the FIO signed by more than 43,000 consumers, including 26,000 CR members, to call for the immediate release of this data, after a December 2024 letter from CR to FIO did not receive a response.
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Contact: David Butler, david.butler@consumer.org