Declarations

Flood Risk Analysis

“I’m looking at what it costs to fix the house, and the fact that I only flooded once in 50 years. So, it’s a risk analysis.”

— Lake Charles, Louisiana, resident Dan Charlson, who said he dropped his flood policy when the math no longer worked. His insurance shot up over time from roughly $900 to $4,000 — an amount he expected to keep climbing. Nationwide, just 2.4% of properties are covered by 4.5 million federal flood insurance policies, an Associated Press analysis shows — but 8.4% are at severe or extreme risk of flooding. The typical cost of a flood insurance policy is $1,100 per year, up roughly 90% in the last five years.

Healthier Florida Marketplace

“It’s a sign of the healthy marketplace: The requests for new agents to be appointed with Citizens has continued to decrease. There’s less reliance on Citizens, which is good for the market.”

— Dave Newell, chairman of Florida’s Citizens’ Market Accountability Advisory Committee, at a September Citizens Board of Governors’ meeting. The number of appointed agents rose 10% from late 2022 to 2023, and continued rising to more than 13,800 by December 2025. Since then, however, the number of agents has fallen 3%, to 13,403 in July of this year.

AI Doomsday Debates

“These arguments just don’t really hold water. I think they’re sci-fi and they’re enticing to a certain childish style of thinking, and it’s very tempting for the frontier labs because it helps them recruit certain types of folks.”

— Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade, a researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne and a member of OpenAI’s Frontier Risk Council, on the “doomsday” scenarios that have taken hold of the public imagination. Debates inside the AI industry and beyond over the plausibility of these doomsday scenarios have heated up since several executives endorsed slowing the technology’s development for safety reasons.

TRIA Investment

“This action reflects strong bipartisan recognition that TRIA remains essential to maintaining economic stability, supporting investment, and ensuring the availability of terrorism risk insurance for businesses and communities across the country.”

— Sam Whitfield, senior vice president of federal government relations and political engagement for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, commenting on reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA). TRIA allows privately insured risk to be backstopped by the federal government, going into effect when an act of terrorism is certified by the Secretary of the Treasury and reaches a threshold of losses. It also includes insurer deductibles and copays.

Battling Beach Erosion

“Fighting Mother Nature is very expensive.”

— San Clemente, California, City Councilman Zhen Wu, who opposes costly measures to re-nourish the city’s local beaches in the face of ongoing erosion. City and transit officials agree more sand is needed and note that coastal communities, including surf hub Huntington Beach, have nourished their beaches for years. Opponents of the measure want sand — but not the tax — and argue San Clemente should work with other communities on a regional approach. San Clemente faces a sand deficit of about 3 million cubic yards. Getting that much sand to the beach is no easy task, he said, adding that trucking it would require 300,000 trips.

NAIC Defends State Supervision

“The continuing modernization of these tools does not reflect an insurance regulatory vacuum requiring enhanced federal guardrails. Rather, it reflects the state-based system performing its longstanding function of adapting prudential standards as markets evolve.”

— The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, led by Virginia Insurance Commissioner Scott White, in the letter defending its supervision of Wall Street’s influence over insurers and their bets on private credit. The NAIC defended the efficiency of the state-led regulatory framework, detailing at length some of its recent or upcoming actions to improve oversight of life insurers’ investments and solvency.