As Wildfire Seasons Intensify, Heinrich Introduces Legislation to Study the Impacts on Home Insurance Coverage, Identify Measures to Alleviate Risks for Homeowners in New Mexico

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Economic Committee, recently introduced the Wildfire Insurance Coverage Study Act to better understand the impacts of increasingly destructive wildfires in the West on insurance coverage for homeowners, and identify possible measures to alleviate the financial risk of wildfires.

"My office is fielding more and more calls from New Mexicans whose premiums are being hiked dramatically, or who have lost their insurance plans entirely. New Mexicans are trying to protect their families' homes and financial stability. They deserve transparent and fair insurance markets that give them peace of mind," said Heinrich. "We need to get a better handle on how exactly these more destructive wildfire seasons and other climate risks are impacting insurance companies' decisions. More accurate data and analysis will help us create more effective solutions to this mounting challenge of insurers substantially raising the cost of premiums for homeowners and even pulling out entirely from Western and forested communities."

According to a report released by Heinrich as Chairman of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the financial risks of wildfires are hard to predict because fires can start for a number of reasons and because their risk to peoples' homes at any given time is based on a complicated combination of topography, drought conditions, wind patterns, fuel amounts, and the location of houses among many other factors. This has led many insurers to either raise premium costs substantially across the board in Western and forested communities or pull out of markets entirely - with several major insurance companies declining to provide any form of coverage.

Heinrich's Wildfire Insurance Coverage Study Act would require a federal study to assess:

The Wildfire Insurance Coverage Study Act is endorsed by Public Citizen and the National Association of Counties (NACo).

Full text of the bill is available here.

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