Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Clears Key House Committee

Posted on November 18, 2019

Last week, the House Committee on Financial Services unanimously (57-0) passed a bipartisan bill that would extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program (TRIA) for seven years. The reauthorization of TRIA the can now move to the floor of the full House of Representatives.

The bill, H.R. 4634, would also require a study on the cyberterrorism market and expand an ongoing study to determine the availability and affordability of TRIA coverage for places of worship. In the Senate, Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina is reportedly working to introduce a reauthorization bill as well. The current bill expires next year.

In order to guarantee that insurance coverage would be available for the commercial real estate industry, Congress first passed the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002. It created a federal reinsurance backstop program for terrorism insurance, and mandated that insurers make terrorism coverage available along with their property and casualty lines of insurance. Congress has already extended TRIA three times.

NAIOP supports the continuation of the program, because the private insurance market has not attained the capacity to provide terrorism risk insurance and meet the needs of the commercial real estate industry.

Meanwhile, the Senate passed a package to provide funding for the Agriculture, Interior, Commerce, Justice, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development departments. However, a measure to pay for the military and the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, State, Energy and Labor failed to obtain the votes needed to move forward.

If lawmakers can’t pass bills to fund the federal government by Nov. 21, they will need to pass another continuing resolution in order to avoid a government shutdown.

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