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By John L. Parker, Esq.
Chair, Legislation Committee
Secretary, Environmental and Energy Law Committee
Extreme weather can dramatically change the future of communities caught in these storms and their resulting natural disasters. On May 7, 2025, the Annual Legislative Forum of the Environmental and Energy Law Section of the New York State Bar Association was held in Albany, New York to discuss these issues. It brought together insurance executives, experts and lawyers for an open discussion of what needs to be done to address the damages and financial impacts of these weather events, and how they will likely impact New York. Here is the link to the article highlighting the issues discussed.1 The Forum featured New York State Senate Environmental Conservation Committee leadership and concluded with a Keynote address by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton.
Extreme weather is increasing in severity and in magnitude. Hurricane Sandy was a seminal moment that foretold the future vulnerability of our communities to significant weather events. It demonstrated the need to find new ways to rebuild to lessen the impacts of future weather events. In response to extreme weather, the insurance industry is changing its willingness to issue certain policies because of the increasing costs of responding to and restoring property losses. Additionally, increased costs are putting some homeowners and businesses in financial predicaments and impacting the costs of new homeownership, necessitating governmental intervention.
Private insurance is a vital component of American real estate – for both residential and business properties. To counteract an increasingly unpredictable climate, new insurance trends feature an increase in insurance premiums in high-risk markets – where climate related risk is expected to be higher, to counteract the billions of dollars each year spent in response to increasing storm frequencies. In other circumstances, in the locations where extreme weather risks – including fire and flood damages, are heightened, insurance companies are entirely withdrawing from the insurance marketplace.
The key considerations relative to insurance impacts include: property exposure, claims, loss control, underwriting considerations, data driven policy risk decision making, and proposed changes to the public – private partnership. Compounding the issue is the evolving dynamic between the federal government seeking to diminish, if not eliminate, its existing role to fund and to contribute substantial financial resources in the worst-case disaster scenarios. What remains unclear is the impact that such changes could bring to the broader insurance market that must rely upon insurance policies. This variable is also impacted by the limited State resources available to replace federal resources in disaster response.
Link to the article highlighting the issues discussed1
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1 Reprinted with permission from the New York State Bar Association © 2025
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John Louis Parker is a Partner and leads the Environmental Energy and Resources Practice Group. He serves as the Chair of the Environmental Law Committee of the Nassau County Bar Association, where he is a member of the Board of Directors. His career includes public service as the Regional Attorney at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for the Lower Hudson Valley - Catskill Region. He served as Counsel to the Chairman of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee. He has written many articles for The New York Environmental Lawyer where he also published its regular quarterly column on the Department of Environmental Conservation. His publications include the Thompson Reuters Environmental Law Practice Series.
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