shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few in guarding its basic and sybil's. it is were debates unfold, decisions are made in the nation's course is charted. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span, giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> joining us now to discuss climate disasters in the u.s. insurance market is amy bach, executive director of united policyholders. welcome to the program. amy: good morning. >> joining us early from san francisco. we appreciate that. let's start by talking about your organization. tell us about united policyholders, when and why did you start it? amy: the original history came

from new york. i was working in the new york state legislature on behalf of the consumer protection board where i was the insurance analyst and the founder of aig came to lobby for a slate of reforms to sue insurance companies and there was no one there for the consumer saying, is that a good idea? do you need that check and balance? i said, i can make myself useful. i got my law degree, came to california and met a whistleblower from state farm who felt they were not handling claims properly. we founded a nonprofit and then the berkeley fire hit and people needed us badly to walk them through how should the claim process work, how do i get treated fairly? from there we built a roadmap to recovery program and preparedness program and

advocacy. for three decades plus we have been providing information and a voice to people across the country and businesses that have bought insurance and want the straight scoop and to be treated fairly and that is primarily what we are about. host: when you were talking about those issues, who were you working with? amy: california has been in the grip of an insurance crisis which has been impacting other states. while in the past we were heavily focused on disaster recovery, which we are doing right now in l.a., we have in recent years built a robust work stream around advancing mitigation, risk reduction. not just in california. helping people deal with insurance companies' increasing reluctance to ensure homes for a price people can afford. all across the country but severely in florida, california

and now colorado. we have been thinking of strategies to help people take steps to make it less likely their homes will be damaged to improve their insurability and that has been a huge part of our focus because insurance companies were one of the first economic powerhouses to recognize climate change is a thing, it is real and they have been moving fairly quickly to protect themselves and my organization has been working to help consumers adapt to how they are changing. host: explain what home insurance is, homeowners insurance, what it is and what it covers, what it does not cover. amy: home insurance in california covers the peril of fire. wildfire, house fire. unlike after hurricane, people here do not have to worry about

whether their insurance policy will them for fir home insurance is supposed to put you back to where you were before a loss, it covers you for every day adversity and typically gives you a defense if somebody sues you. basically it is supposed to give you money to be indemnified, put as close as possible back to the position you were in before this bad thing happened and that is the basic purpose of it. host: we have been hearing a lot about homeowners insurance this past month and even late last year with climate disasters we are seeing the cost of homeowners insurance, like a lot of other insurances, has jumped. according to lending tree, the state of home insurance in 2024, rates up 37.8% cumulatively since 2019.

what are factors as to why the rates are increasing the way they are? amy: the first is the inconvenient truth al gore talked about, there is a price tag for the increasingly severe weather events associated with climate change, higher winds, more frequent hurricanes, tornadoes, strange events like wildfires in january. that is number one. climate change, insurance companies are all over it. they saw it coming many years ago and have been making changes which includes raising rates saying we need to charge more because risk has increased and so we have to charge more. so there is that. there is also inflation since the early covid eric, supply chain interruption that drove up the cost of construction materials, car parts, things that affect how much they pay

out on claims to their customers. number three is the explosion in unregulated tech tools that insurance companies buy and use to run their operations, to decide who they want to ensure and what they will charge. that includes aerial drone images, ai data mining, risk scoring. like everybody has a credit score and that affects the interest rates they get rates td when they borrow money, people also have an insurance score based on their claim history and their risk characteristics. those things matter to insurers. now, instead of insuring a lot of risks more blindly the way at -- the way they used to, they have tmi, too much information. they can see all the warts in your home or business, they can see it from the air, read it in the stats they get.

and some of those tech tools are exaggerating risks. they are overstating it. that is where the projections that insurers are using, those catastrophe models, those predictive models that purport to crystal ball see the future, they always seem to err on the side of guessing higher. like this risk is higher. it is more likely that the insurance company will get a claim on this property and that information is really scaring insurers out of doing what they have traditionally done, and what we expect them to do, which is to take on risk in return for money. host: our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is amy bach the executive director of policy united. i'm sorry, united policyholders. we are talking about the impact climate disasters are having on the u.s. insurance market. if you have a question or

comment for her, you can call in now. the lines are broken down regionally. if you are in the eastern or central time zone, it is (202) 748-8001. you can shoot as a text as well. a headline from cbs, thousands of los angeles homeowners were dropped by their insurer before the palisades fire. it is not just the increasing costs of homeowner insurance but also the availability. talk to us about what is happening there. amy: what's happening here is very similar to what has been happening in florida for a number of years. the brand name insurance companies that people have been relying on to ensure their homes for many, many years, businesses as