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Advisory council hears rising economic costs of extreme weather and insurance’s role in resilience
Summary
Presentations to Connecticut’s new Severe Weather Mitigation and Resiliency Advisory Council showed rising global and U.S. disaster costs, a large protection gap between economic and insured losses, and existing state and national programs (Fortified, retrofit grants) that could shrink recovery time and reduce long‑term costs.
Insurance and resilience experts told Connecticut’s new advisory council that climate-driven disasters are costing economies far more than insurers pay out and that mitigation programs can materially reduce both loss and recovery time.
Jeffrey, research director at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, told the council that global economic losses in 2024 were on the order of about $320 billion, with insured losses at roughly 45% of that total. He highlighted NOAA data showing 24 separate U.S. events in 2024 with more than $1 billion in damages and cited a U.S. estimate of roughly $61.6 billion in direct economic losses for 2024.
“Those numbers show a widening protection gap—the difference between total economic loss and what insurance covers,” Jeffrey said, arguing that expanding insurance penetration and creating retrofit programs can speed recovery. He described a simple risk framework—hazard, exposure and vulnerability—and said mitigation and insurance together reduce post‑event time to recovery and create financial incentives for risk reduction.
Jeffrey and other presenters described a range of program tools already in use. The NAIC has created a resiliency hub to help states design retrofit grant programs and build peer learning. He pointed to Alabama’s long‑running home‑strengthening program as a national model and said that benefit‑cost studies and catastrophe‑modeling analyses can help secure funding.
The presentations focused on concrete levers: building‑level improvements such as sealed roof decks and stronger attachments led to demonstrable reductions in roof and water intrusion damage, the speakers said, and retrofit programs tied to third‑party verification can increase uptake.
Next steps for the council include reviewing existing retrofit grants, the NAIC playbook and modeling outputs to prepare proposals for state options and funding strategies.
