Senate Budget Committee releases nonrenewal data and hears witnesses on a widening climate-driven home insurance crisis

The Senate Committee on the Budget on Tuesday released new county-level data showing rising homeowner policy nonrenewals and held its final hearing of the 118th Congress to examine how those trends intersect with climate-driven disaster risk, inflation and litigation.

Chairman White house, who opened the hearing, said the committee’s report draws on data from nearly two dozen insurers representing roughly two-thirds of the homeowners market and warned that rising nonrenewals and premiums threaten mortgages, property values and community tax bases. “The answers are now and very, and it’s only getting worse,” the chairman said while placing an NAIC letter about potential data inconsistencies into the record and promising corrections if necessary.

Why it matters: Witnesses agreed that access and affordability have become serious problems in some markets but differed sharply on the principal causes. Ben Keys, a professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School, said committee datasets—one covering about 47 million premium records (2014–2023) and a second nonrenewal dataset covering roughly…