Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) recently authored a letter to Steven Seitz, director of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office, requesting his office conduct an immediate investigation and issue a report to Congress on the availability of pandemic insurance. Rep. Cleaver asked the Treasury Department to determine how insurers have responded to COVID-19 and to understand how insurance markets will respond to a possible second wave.
Last month, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and 20 other Democratic members of Congress introduced H.R. 7011, the Pandemic Risk Insurance Act of 2020 (PRIA). This bill is modeled on similar legislation passed after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act also known as TRIA, which was originally introduced to boost the travel, retail, financial, and entertainment areas of the economy that could not get insurance coverage for investments and projects, during the aftermath of the post 9/11 economic downturn.
(Contact: John Jones at jjones@nareit.com)