CHARLOTTE, NC (Oct. 8, 2024) – Today, Amwins, a leading distributor of specialty insurance products and services, and Floodbase launched a municipal flood insurance program, backed by an “A+” AM Best rated carrier, designed to insure California municipalities against previously uncovered losses due to atmospheric river flooding.
Without viable existing insurance options, California’s public sector has been largely unprotected from damages caused by atmospheric rivers, leaving communities, critical facilities, and municipalities to cover damages or be subject to lengthy adjustment periods when losses occur.
Amwins and Floodbase partnered to launch a flood program that closes the insurance gap with policy payouts that automatically scale with the magnitude of atmospheric river flooding. The program offers rapid access to capital that municipal governments can use at their discretion to fund emergency response, offset lost tax revenue, establish residential rebuilding programs, or repair public infrastructure.
The new program has already generated bound coverage from California public sector clients. These municipalities have replaced a portion of flood coverage with this new parametric product from Amwins and Floodbase. "The California atmospheric river season runs from November through March and is fast becoming just as costly as the North Atlantic hurricane season or Midwest tornado season,” said Alex Kaplan, executive vice president for Alternative Risk at Amwins. “Economic loss due to flooding decreases tax revenue and affects every sector and industry, from city budgets to banking, agriculture, and tourism. Our program with Floodbase brings much needed coverage and stability to local governments in a state which insurers have been leaving.”
These atmospheric phenomena, which can transport 15 times the water volume of the Mississippi River, cost California on average, more than $1 billion every year. In 2023, the atmospheric river season cost California $5 - $7 billion in damages. Driven by climate change, annual damages from atmospheric rivers are projected to increase, with exposures expected to double this century.
Over the past two years, federal support covered less than 1% of the economic losses from atmospheric rivers, and many of these funds have yet to be obligated to localities on the ground. With limited insurance options and federal disaster recovery funding delayed for years, flood-impacted municipalities often struggle to rebuild their community, balance their budget, and maintain continuity of public services.
“Public sector leaders across California recognize the growing threat of atmospheric rivers, and understand the dire financial position that municipalities can be left in following a flood. These annual storms have essentially become the west coast’s hurricane season”, said Bessie Schwarz, chief executive officer at Floodbase. “This program delivers fast, flexible funds that can be deployed as needed immediately following a flood - the type of economic backstop that was just not available before.”
To inquire about purchasing Amwins’ municipal flood insurance coverage for your local government or public sector clients, please reach out to Amwins’ Executive Vice President of Alternative Risk, Alex Kaplan. To learn more about Amwins’ parametric capabilities, visit amwins.com/parametric.
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About Amwins
Amwins is the largest independent wholesale distributor of specialty insurance products in the U.S. dedicated to serving retail insurance agents by providing property and casualty products, specialty group benefit products, and administrative services. Based in Charlotte, N.C., the company operates through more than 155 offices globally and handles premium placements in excess of $33 billion annually. For more information, visit amwins.com.
About Floodbase
Floodbase is an AI platform for insuring uncovered flood risk. Built on nearly a decade of groundbreaking science, our solution continuously monitors flooding worldwide. Floodbase fuses hydrologic modeling and decades of satellite imagery to monitor flooding and flood severity every hour across the United States. The company’s flood monitoring technology, was recently proven to outperform NOAA. Top re/insurers use Floodbase to cover large corporate and public sector clients against previously uninsurable economic loss from flooding. Floodbase is also used by FEMA, USAID, the UN, The New York Times and others to identify and more rapidly respond to floods.
During Climate Week NYC in September, 2024 Alex Kaplan and Bessie Schwarz joined a panel moderated by Bloomberg to discuss insurance for public sector resilience. Watch the panel below to learn more about viable, scalable flood coverage for the public sector.
