NAMIC Welcomes Senate Bill to Extend TRIA

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies applauded the introduction today of legislation to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, a public-private partnership that has made insurance coverage to protect against losses from terrorism available for the past two decades.

“The Terrorism Risk Insurance Program is vital to ensuring continued construction and development in communities across the country,” said Jimi Grande, senior vice president of federal and political affairs at NAMIC. “In the more than 20 years since it was created, the program has made billions of dollars of development possible, and tens of thousands of jobs, and all at virtually no cost to taxpayers.”

Established in 2002 under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, the program provides stability and costs certainty for insurers and requires them to make coverage available. In the event of a major terrorist attack, the federal government would provide up-front funding for a percentage of losses after companies paid a deductible, and insurers would repay that funding with interest. The program was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as lenders began requiring terrorism coverage the market could not provide given the adaptive nature of terrorism and the lack of available data due to national security concerns. A reauthorization bill was approved by the House Financial Services Committee in January and is awaiting a vote on the House floor.

“The threat from terrorism is unfortunately as real today as it was when TRIA was created,” Grande said. “We continue to face unpredictable and potentially catastrophic danger, and it is absolutely essential that Congress acts swiftly to reauthorize TRIA and ensure our economy remains protected from terrorist attacks.”