FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 10, 2025

CONTACT: Patrick Davis, pdavis@citizen.org
Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org

New Guide Aims to Protect Communities Reeling from Climate Disasters

A new resource for policymakers seeks to offer guidance as climate disasters are creating compounding crises for homeowners, renters, and insurance policyholders 

WASHINGTON — As communities across the country face increasingly severe and frequent climate disasters, a new guide released today by the Equitable & Just Insurance Initiative offers a slate of actions local and state governments can take to protect renters, homeowners, communities, and insurance policyholders. 

The guide includes a broad list of actions elected officials and regulators can take to better protect people and avert the financial scarring that often comes from a climate disaster. Written by Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Public Citizen with input from partners in the Equitable & Just Insurance Initiative, the guide draws on recent experience and needed protections in the wake of climate-driven catastrophes. 

“We’re unfortunately living through a time when climate impacts are accelerating even as the Trump administration actively dismantles the federal agencies and programs that protect people and help them recover and rebuild when disaster strikes,” said Alex Martin, climate finance policy director at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “State and local policymakers need to step up and enact these protections quickly to prevent long-term harm to their residents, to make responsible parties like fossil fuel firms and their financial backers pay for the damages they have sown, and to rebuild in a more climate-resilient fashion.”     

Among the recommendations, which include proposed protections for renters, homeowners, insurance policyholders, and for the communities impacted by disasters, the guide suggests: 

• Implementing a one-year moratorium on rent increases, evictions, and mortgage foreclosures for nonpayment.
• Prohibiting unsolicited bids on homes for an amount less than fair market value of property before the disaster for 120 days to prevent corporate takeovers by entities like private equity firms that drive up housing costs.
• Prohibiting post-disaster price gouging on insurance premium rates and banning insurance cancellations or nonrenewals for one year in affected areas.
• Increasing insurer penalties for unfair claims settlement practices for one year following the disaster.
• Avoiding bailouts paid for by insurance consumers or the public.
• Rigorously expanding anti-fraud enforcement against contractor fraud and insurance claims adjusters. 
• Prohibiting price gouging for physical materials needed for disaster preparation and recovery (including anticipatory stockpiling pre-disaster).

“For too many disaster survivors, the worst part of a hurricane or wildfire may not be the event itself but the long-term financial devastation that can follow,” said Carly Fabian, senior insurance policy advocate with Public Citizen. “Without strong oversight, navigating the Kafkaesque nightmare of the insurance claims process can compound the trauma of the disaster. As climate change accelerates the pace of disasters, the ability to recover will depend on how well state and local leaders act to protect their constituents. Too often, state regulators have given in to the industry’s playbook of deregulation, weakening core consumer protections to protect the profits of big companies rather than their constituents. As a starting point for state and local leaders, these principles highlight a path in the opposite direction. Rather than waiting for the next disaster or post-disaster scandal, state and local leaders in every state should take proactive steps to protect their constituents now.”

In addition to the efforts to protect communities post-disaster, the guide offers proposals to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage caused by climate-driven disasters, including litigation against the responsible parties for damages, such as fossil fuel companies, utilities, and financial firms that have contributed to the climate crisis.

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