Insurers Scramble for Disaster Data After NOAA Halts Updates

The insurance industry is reeling from the federal government’s decision to stop updating NOAA’s "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database. For decades, this dataset served as a foundational tool for insurers, providing critical insight into the financial impacts of hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and other catastrophic events. Without it, insurers lose a reliable, centralized source for modeling risk—raising questions about how they’ll adjust in a world where weather volatility is only increasing.

NOAA’s historical data played a central role in catastrophe modeling, helping insurers forecast losses, set premiums, and make decisions about market entry and exit. While private data providers exist, they come at a steep cost and lack NOAA’s unique public-private data integration. This presents a significant barrier for smaller insurers who can’t match the financial muscle of industry giants. As a result, some experts warn the gap could lead to market consolidation, less competition, and ultimately, higher premiums for policyholders.

Consumers in high-risk regions such as Florida and California are likely to be the first to feel the impact. Already facing insurance withdrawals and rate hikes, they could see even fewer options as data scarcity forces insurers to either overprice or exit markets altogether. Meanwhile, efforts to innovate—like Allstate’s exploration of quantum computing for modeling—are promising but not yet ready to fill the void NOAA leaves behind.

Industry groups and regulators are urging action. The NAIC recently called on federal officials to restore NOAA’s data tracking, citing its role in maintaining insurance market stability. Whether through government intervention or private innovation, the need for reliable disaster data has never been clearer. For insurers and policyholders alike, the clock is ticking as climate risks intensify.