SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS–Insurance company representatives here for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners voiced fears that new burdens will be put on them to help alleviate the impact of global warming.
Their comments came at a four-hour hearing prior to the opening of the NAIC winter meeting last week, at which regulators and industry representatives sometimes disagreed on the proper role the industry can play in climate change politics.
Nebraska Commissioner Tim Wagner, who co-chairs the Climate Change and Global Warming Task Force, said the insurance industry has an important duty to bring the issue to public consciousness since it has the most to lose from the possible effects of global warming.
Insurance representatives warned against expecting the industry to pick up the slack if the government fails to take action.
Robert Detflsen, public policy director for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, said the industry wanted to make clear that it was unrealistic to think insurers, either through their underwriting practices or investment policies, can affect the rate of global warming.
"I fear that to the extent government agencies that actually have jurisdiction over this sort of thing have not lived up to expectations, people in the environmental community see the insurance industry as a kind of surrogate government regulator that will affect climate change policy in a way that avoids using government institutions," he said.
Mr. Wagner dismissed such concerns, asserting that for the time being raising public consciousness is the prime duty the industry has in terms of the global warming issue.
Debra Ballen, executive vice president of the American Insurance Association, has written that the industry can use its actuarial tools to adjust rates that take into account climate change scenarios.
"Unfortunately, state insurance regulators often suppress risk-based policies due to concerns about affordability or other political pressures," she said.
Ms. Ballen also said the industry has contributed to global warming solutions through the development of risk management products that promote the use of so-called "green technologies."
She urged that liability laws be written to encourage the testing of these new technologies.
"Similar liability protections have been put in place to encourage the development of anti-terrorism technologies," she wrote.
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