Marsh McLennan briefs US Treasury on hurricane response

The US Department of the Treasury hosted a roundtable on October 30 with more than 20 experts from the banking and insurance industries, along with consumer advocates and state and federal regulators, to discuss the financial sector's responses to hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Daniel Kaniewski, Marsh McLennan's Managing Director for Public Sector, participated in the roundtable. As a former deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, his expertise helped guide a constructive conversation on the topic of disaster resilience.

"When it comes to resilience, there's no silver bullet," said Kaniewski. "Insurance, preparedness and hazard mitigation are all essential."

He emphasized that building resilience requires partnerships among the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Kaniewski particularly stressed the need for linkage between risk transfer and risk reduction. "Only by reducing financial and physical impacts can resilience be achieved," he said.

He cited as an example an innovative risk transfer mechanism known as Community-Based Catastrophe Insurance (CBCI), a type of disaster insurance that can provide financial protection to communities. Paired with risk reduction measures, communities will be better able to withstand, and more rapidly recover from, disasters.

"We are all co-beneficiaries of resilience investments," he concluded. "These actions reduce impacts on disaster survivors but also reduce losses to our industries, and to the American taxpayer. Thus, we all have a role to play in incentivizing our clients, and our communities, to take resilience actions."

Other ways of supporting affected communities that were discussed at the roundtable include permitting flexibility by insurers and financial institutions for mortgage or other payments; opening mobile bank branches; staffing 24/7 claims offices; and suspending certain fees, changes in policies and payments.

Senior Treasury Department officials reiterated the importance of these and other initiatives and led discussions on efforts to reduce burdens and enable the swift and continual flow of aid to impacted communities.