Maryland Climate Change Insurance Advisory Committee Report

Maryland’s 2008 Climate Action Plan, the "Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Maryland’s Vulnerability to Climate Change – Phase I: Sea-level rise and coastal storms," established a recommendation to create an advisory committee to “advise the State of the risks that climate change poses to the availability and affordability of insurance” to consumers and business in Maryland. The Climate Change Insurance Advisory Committee was subsequently created and issued this report in 2010 to implement the recommendation.

The Committee analyzed several topics in the report, including:

  • The sufficiency of data available for assessing climate change-related risks,
  • Whether options such as zoning and building code changes could mitigate losses caused by climate change,
  • Whether rate structures could incentivize early adaptation, and
  • Options for promoting partnerships with policyholders.

For adaptive options to mitigate losses, the report discusses three broad categories:

  • Strategies to make the environment less hazardous by maintaining natural features (e.g. Conservation easements);
  • Strategies to make structures more resistant to impacts (e.g. Building codes and construction standards); and
  • Strategies to manage development and redevelopment (e.g. Overlay districts, setbacks and buffers, and site design regulations).


The report also identifies a number of steps important for promoting partnerships and using incentives to modify behavior. These steps are identifying key stakeholders to engage (such as government agencies, industry, and utilities), using existing partnerships, building new alliances (for example, with the business community and with other states leading on adaptation), developing incentives to adapt, and building on Maryland’s Coast Smart Communities Initiative.

Publication Date: 2010

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  • Adaptation plan

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