As part of its Enterprise Risk Management framework, MBIA has identified climate change as an emerging risk to its insured portfolio of public finance credits. While the company's insurance subsidiaries are no longer writing new business and do not need to consider climate risk in the context of underwriting decisions, its existing insured portfolios will take decades to run off and will remain exposed to the impacts of climate change.
The significant majority of MBIA's outstanding insured gross par exposure is to U.S. municipalities, which are subject to both direct and indirect effects of climate change including an increasing risk to severe weather events, flooding and droughts. The direct effects include costs to repair storm damage and flooding and to mitigate the impact of future events. Indirect impacts include potential deterioration of tax bases as populations move away from areas prone to severe weather, flooding, drought, wild fires, etc.
The impact of climate change on MBIA's insured portfolio is likely to manifest over a long period of time. In most cases, these are not new risks but the increasing frequency and severity of such events are turning what had been extremely remote events into more frequent events. It is unclear how efforts to reduce carbon emissions will influence to the pace and magnitude of climate change. The expense to municipalities of mitigating climate risk may result in financial strain depending upon the nature of the risk being mitigated and the availability of state and/or federal funding.
In response to these threats, MBIA's risk management and insured portfolio management groups have identified the sectors of the insured portfolio that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and factor these risks into internal ratings, frequency of review and potential remedial action. Sectors at increased risk to climate-driven events include water and sewer systems, single site/revenue generating assets, bridge and road infrastructure, electric utilities and housing.