The insurance industry should be in the business of assessing risk, not amplifying political narratives. Yet the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) has allowed itself to become another mouthpiece for the climate agenda.
In its March 2025 report, The Future of Insurance: Seeking Solutions in a New Era of Risk, NAMIC warns of a “new era of risk: extreme weather” supposedly driving catastrophic losses. The problem is that NAMIC’s central piece of evidence, a bar chart labeled “All Weather and Climate Disasters Count,” isn’t showing disaster frequency at all. It’s showing billion-dollar disasters. That’s a serious and misleading error. Billion-dollar disasters are not a count of how many storms or fires occur. They’re a measure of how much economic damage they cause, and that number naturally rises over time as populations grow, property values increase, and inflation drives up costs. In other words, there are more expensive disasters today because there is more wealth and infrastructure in harm’s way, not because nature has become more violent.
Even The Washington Post recently acknowledged this reality, admitting that the growing price tag of U.S. weather disasters says as much about where we live and what we build as it does about the climate itself. Yet NAMIC’s report glosses over that nuance, leaning into the same climate alarmism that fuels bad policy and higher premiums.
Insurers should be the sober adults in the climate debate. They have the data, the models, and the experience to separate real risk from political fiction. Instead, NAMIC’s framing parrots the same talking points that environmental activists and ESG advocates have used for years to justify restricting credit, capital, and coverage for lawful American industries, especially energy.
This is not a theoretical concern. It’s already happening.
In February, The Hartford Insurance Group notified the American Energy Institute that it would not renew its policy. The reason? “We have learned from your Facebook page that your operations include trade association involved in promoting social/political causes related to energy production,” the company wrote. That’s right, an insurance carrier refused coverage because it disagreed with our speech.
Congress took notice. In a September 23 letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) cited The Hartford’s actions as “a concerning example” of insurance companies denying service “over First Amendment-protected activity.” Comer warned that these denials and cancellations are “cryptically worded yet plainly targeted,” part of a growing trend of “politically motivated discrimination” against lawful businesses in the energy, firearms, and cryptocurrency sectors.
This is exactly the kind of discrimination that ESG ideology was designed to enforce, cutting off financial services to politically disfavored industries under the guise of managing “climate risk.” When insurers like The Hartford penalize groups for supporting domestic energy, they are not managing risk, they are enforcing a political orthodoxy. And when NAMIC echoes those same climate narratives, it lends legitimacy to the very forces now undermining its own members’ credibility.
If NAMIC truly wants to help the insurance industry navigate risk, it should start by getting the facts right. NOAA’s own records show no long-term upward trend in the frequency of hurricanes, tornadoes, or floods in the United States. Adjusting for inflation and economic growth, the actual rate of natural disasters has remained flat for decades. What has changed is where people live, more Americans building along coastlines, in floodplains, and at the wildland-urban interface. That’s a land-use issue, not a climate problem.
By mislabeling data and implying that the weather itself has grown more destructive, NAMIC hands regulators and activists the political ammunition they need to justify new mandates and discriminatory practices. That’s how the ESG machine works: it starts with distorted data, builds a narrative of “crisis,” and ends with financial coercion.
Insurers should know better than to play along. Their job is to price risk accurately, not to advance the talking points of environmental groups or bureaucrats. If they want to strengthen the industry, they should focus on reinforcing sound underwriting and protecting open access to insurance markets for every lawful business.
The American Energy Institute will continue to push back against this politicized distortion of the insurance sector. Reliable risk assessment is vital to a free and functioning economy. When insurers abandon objective analysis in favor of ideological conformity, they don’t just fail their policyholders, they help dismantle the very markets they were created to protect.
It’s time for NAMIC to stop echoing the climate lobby and return to its purpose: defending insurance from politics, not weaponizing it in service of the ESG agenda.
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