Brandie Andrews

There are an estimated 12.8 million households in California, and only 870,000 of them—a mere 6.8%—purchased earthquake insurance from the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) last year.

Insurers writing business in the U.S. face a different set of rate filing rules and regulatory requirements in each state and the District of Columbia. It was the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 that set the stage for state-based regulation of insurance in the U.S.—a contrast to most other countries in the world where the insurance industry is regulated at the country level.

The State of Florida wants a private flood insurance market. Toward that end, the well-known Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology will start reviewing flood models in 2018.

The Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) is an annual internal process undertaken by insurers to assess the adequacy of their enterprise risk management (ERM) and solvency positions under both normal and severe stress scenarios. An ORSA represents the insurer's own assessment of their current and future risks.

A few years ago my father moved to Arkansas City, Kansas ("Ark City), very near the great Arkansas River. His house is a few blocks away from the snaking dike that shields nearly the entire city from flooding. Ark City lies at the confluence of two great tributaries of the Mississippi—the Arkansas River and the Walnut River—and spans two separate river basins, the Lower Arkansas and the Walnut.