Carolyn Kousky shares policy recommendations to reform the California insurance market with the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire Safe Recovery. Her suggestions focus on creating insurable communities and inclusive insurance systems.

Image: Isleton, California in 2024. (Alysha Beck/UC Davis) As many communities, small and large, face ongoing and increasing risk of flooding, new approaches to help residents prepare and recover are becoming increasingly important. The City of Isleton, CA is taking an innovative approach.

To better protect itself and ensure a faster recovery, Puerto Rico, in partnership with FEMA, has taken a bold step by securing a parametric insurance policy as another tool in the toolbox to support pre- and post-disaster hurricane and earthquake recovery efforts.

We summarize the dynamics in the California insurance market that have been unfolding through six sets of graphs, providing context for the current insurance issues facing the state as recovery begins.

In the United States, buildings account for more than a third of national CO2 emissions and many buildings are not able to withstand the impacts of future climate extremes. As the risks of climate disasters grow, our buildings require updates to decarbonize and improve energy efficiency and better protect inhabitants from intensifying weather-related events.

Amid inflation, high housing costs, and myriad day-to-day challenges, telling households that are already living on the edge, that they need to invest in emergency savings and disaster insurance coverage can often feel like a non-starter, but it is critical as an industry that we at minimum fix misconceptions, so households can make informed decisions.  

Insurance for Good is a foundation for positive change, for improved risk management, and a platform to adapt and reinvent risk transfer to work in a changing, and increasingly challenging, environment. We need to build risk solutions that can promote an equitable, resilient, climate-friendly, and nature-positive future.