National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies Urges Congress to Provide Resources for Mitigation

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, May 5 -- The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies issued the following news release:

Congress should provide the resources communities across the country need to better protect themselves from severe climate impacts, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies said today.

In a statement submitted to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, and Insurance, NAMIC called on lawmakers to build on earlier efforts to help communities mitigate their vulnerabilities to severe weather by boosting funding for federal mitigation grants and helping communities undertake retrofitting programs to improve resilience.

"Congress should lead the way in pursuing the goal of enacting policies that will ensure our nation's communities - and importantly, underserved communities - are fortified against the devastation caused by severe climate impacts," said Jimi Grande, senior vice president of government affairs for NAMIC. "Providing these communities with the resources they need to ensure new construction can withstand severe weather, as well as shoring up older buildings, will reduce losses and, more importantly, save lives."

NAMIC's statement urged the subcommittee to create incentives for the adoption of modern building codes and to provide the resources for code enforcement. The association further called for an increase in funding for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program, or BRIC, that provides federal grants for state and local mitigation projects and building code enforcement.

"The creation of the BRIC program in 2018 was a massive step forward in terms of addressing climate risk and severe weather," Grande said. "As we have seen in recent years, it is more important now than ever before to consider the devastating impact of severe weather events and what we can do to prepare. With the start of hurricane season just weeks away and as wildfires continue to cause widespread devastation in the Western United States, we must ensure we are doing all we can to protect communities across the nation ahead of the next disaster."