Climate change

The analytics tool takes a look at geography and borrower activity to help pinpoint areas with high concentrations of loans at risk from natural disasters.

California homeowners could be required to pay a surcharge if the state's insurer of last resort is unable to cover losses from a catastrophic wildfire.

InnSure executive director shares how communities can combat higher rates and mitigate climate risk by taking control of their insurability.

Climate change is leading to an increase in frequency of catastrophic weather events, causing property damage and issues with homeowners insurance.

Nikitra Bailey, EVP at the National Fair Housing Alliance, says communities of color are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of prior redlining practices. She explains that a HUD rule could make a big difference.

Western utilities and beyond are finding it prohibitively expensive, if not impossible, to insure against potential fire-related claims. The issue will become more pressing as climate change makes droughts more intense and frequent, heightening the chances of more destructive infernos.

Understanding the peril is important for both primary and secondary mortgage market pricing of loans and risk, experts in a panel to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Secondary Conference said Tuesday.

"Lax regulation and monitoring of property insurers makes Florida mortgage markets far more exposed to climate risk than people might think," said Parinitha Sastry, an author of a working paper by researchers at Harvard University, Columbia University and the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Housing Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Housing Finance Agency have started gathering data and analyzing how climate risk will impact the housing ecosystem.

An insurance-indexed debt-to-income ratio could help mitigate borrowers' rising premiums, and help maintain a healthy servicing portfolio, experts said.