Insurance industry trade groups balked at calls to require carriers to collect and disclose more information about how climate change might impact their operations, investments and fiscal stability during a meeting of state regulators.

The two sides clashed at a hearing of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' Climate Change Task Force. Industry advocates argued that the disclosure being sought was punitive and impossible to supply, while groups seeking the information said any difficulties could be worked out and insurers just need prodding.

The session began with distribution of maps displaying a 160-square-mile piece of ice shelf that has broken off Antarctica. "I think it shows a trend and we have a potential for a much larger collapse," said Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Sean Dilweg, who heads the task force.

Before he heard from speakers for both sides, Mr. Dilweg said the proposal was "truly a draft," and comments would be received through April 15.

An NAIC white paper on the issue, revised just before the meeting, stated that the group assumes global warming is occurring because there is "ample evidence." The paper said weather-related risk to insurer solvency is of universal concern for insurance regulators, "especially when considering insurer financial stability is heavily dependent on its investment portfolio. So it is imperative we examine how climate change will impact the investments insurers hold and establish applicable regulatory standards for the investment practices of insurers."

The paper went on to note that real estate is a portion of all investments held by insurers, and "many of these properties are located within coastal areas, with increasing risk from climate change-influenced weather perils." Weather losses can impact asset value, fortification costs and cause business interruption, the white paper added.

Among other statements included in the paper, it said regulators need to know if insurers are adequately including climate in their risk assessment process and should ask about data collection and computer model use. They should also ask if and how insurers are providing incentives for policyholders to deal with their risks, if they are informing board members about climate risk, and if they are taking steps to mitigate their own risks, the paper added.

Bob Detlefsen, representing the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, said the paper was "somewhat presumptuous" in assuming insurers had certain knowledge with questions that had "a thinly disguised policy agenda."

Asking what actions a company has taken, he said, implies an insurer "should have taken" action to assess financial impact, while asking about known trends from climate change impact on financials leaves open the question "known by whom."

Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, said the science to determine the risk is still very much an unknown, and that questions concerning loss reserves for climate change-related exposures ignore the fact that reserves are set after a loss occurs.

Regulators, in seeking the data, should "be careful what [they] wish for," he said, because the material is likely to have a negative impact on insurance availability and affordability for coastal areas.

David Kodama, policy analyst director for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, told regulators that carriers need guidance on the parameters involved and what is considered acceptable modeling. He questioned the state of the science and the ability of insurers to assess the risk, and asked them to step back from their timetable for action.

David Snyder, American Insurance Association vice president and assistant general counsel, said insurers "care deeply about this issue" and mentioned that his industry is more and more involved with offering "green" projects and services.

He said the climate exposure issue would be better addressed if it was part of the general disclosure in the management disclosure and analysis section of an insurer's annual filing.

The disclosures sought, he said, call for "utter speculation" that would be damaging to insurers, adding that the mandated information could do significant harm to insurers and provoke litigation from parties and businesses who feel they are improperly ranked as a climate risk by insurers. The disclosures, according to Mr. Snyder, create more problems than they solve.

In response, Mr. Dilweg said his aim was to create commonality in gathering data because individual states are ready to act on their own.

Birny Birnbaum, a consumer advocate with the Center for Economic Justice, said unless insurers provide full information, regulators cannot act to assure a proper industry response to climate change.

Stressing the need for full industry disclosure, he suggested that regulators and market forces would have prevented the bond insurance crisis if full details of carriers' more "opaque," riskier activities had been revealed. The information should be public, according to Mr. Birnbaum, because if it is only given to regulators, market discipline will not be exerted.

Andrew Logan, director of Ceres--a coalition of investors and environmentalists--said insurers had a poor record of disclosing climate impact information to the Securities and Exchange Commission and others who sought the data.

Voluntary disclosure by insurers has not been successful, he said, charging that carriers have provided "precious little information." He characterized the NAIC proposal as a very good start.

Larry Shapiro, representing the Rockefeller Family Fund, raised concerns about the fact that states would be seeking information individually. "Do you want to proceed piecemeal?" he asked.

As to whether the answers to climate change impact questions should be public, mandatory and under oath, Mr. Shapiro said "the answer should be yes." He conceded, however, that "maybe the questions should be tweaked. That's where we should go."