Consumer advocate Douglas Heller was looking for reassurance when he asked a Biden administration official recently about its long-awaited analysis of how climate change is affecting property insurance.
Instead, Heller, director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America, got stonewalled.
“I don’t have anything definitive to report at this time,” replied Steven Seitz, director of the Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office, which launched the analysis that began in 2021.
One day after Seitz’s terse answer at a Dec. 12 public meeting, leading consumer groups began pressuring the Biden administration to release its sweeping analysis of neighborhoods where property insurance is scarce or highly expensive.