From Flood Losses to Fiscal Stress: Quantifying US Residential Insurance Gaps and Credit Impacts
Flooding events in the US are becoming more frequent and more severe, driving higher losses across residential property markets. Yet a significant share of US homes exposed to flood risk remain uninsured —resulting in significant residential flood insurance protection gaps. In this webinar, Moody’s experts will present findings from our latest research quantifying the US residential flood insurance gap and discuss how uninsured flood losses can strain local economies and pose credit challenges for state and local governments through rising property insurance costs, declining property values, and the need for extensive investment in climate adaptation infrastructure.
Key discussion topics:
- Quantifying US residential flood risk and protection gaps under current and future climate scenarios
- Credit implications for US state and local governments, including disaster recovery costs, fiscal flexibility, and longer-term resilience
- The role of adaptation, resilience investments, and insurance solutions in improving residential insurability and mitigating credit impacts
Speakers
Rebecca Karnovitz
Vice President – Senior Credit Officer, Sustainable Finance
Moody’s Ratings
Denise Rappmund
Vice President - Senior Analyst
Moody’s Ratings
Firas Saleh, Ph.D
Director, Product Management, Insurance Solutions
Moody's
Jennifer Chang
Vice President – Senior Credit Officer, Sustainable Finance
Moody’s Ratings
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Rebecca is a Vice President – Senior Credit Officer in Moody’s Sustainable Finance group, where she leads thought leadership on the impact of environmental, social and governance factors on credit and capital markets. In her role, Rebecca is responsible for the coordination and execution of the Sustainable Finance group’s thematic research program and market outreach activities. She also serves as a visible subject matter expert to internal and external stakeholders and supports outreach and engagement with strategic partners.
Prior to joining the ESG team, Rebecca was a member of the Strategy and Research team at MIS, where she led cross-sector research and analytics on the credit implications of key macroeconomic and policy developments in North America. Rebecca first joined Moody’s in 2011 as an associate analyst in the Sovereign Risk Group.
She holds a dual Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University (SIPA), in New York, and Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), in Paris, as well as a BA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
Denise Rappmund is a Vice President/Senior Analyst on the States Rating Team, currently covering several state governments, mass transits and state-sponsored property insurance issuers, including Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, West Virginia, North Carolina, MBTA and DART. Prior to joining the States Team, Denise was a lead analyst on the Southwest Local Government team, and covered Texas, Colorado and Kansas, during which time she was the state lead for Kansas, lead for the City of Dallas, and headed up the team’s Colorado metropolitan district sector.
Prior to joining Moody’s in 2014, Denise was a public finance investment banker with Piper Jaffray in California. Over the course of her nearly two-decade career in public finance, she has developed expertise in a broad range of sectors and complex structures, spanning macro areas like international trade and the economies of the US-Mexico border, to concentrated economies in sectors like energy or tourism; as well as real estate and project-specific expertise in special district transactions covering hotels, convention centers, commercial and residential developments.
Denise holds a B.A. in economics and international affairs from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Firas Saleh, Ph.D., is a Director of Product Management at Moody's based in New York, specializing in insurance, wildfire, and flood risk. He leads strategy and innovation for Moody's RMS U.S. flood and wildfire solutions, bridging quantitative analytics with insurance industry applications.
Jennifer Chang is a Vice President – Senior Credit Officer in Moody’s Sustainable Finance Group, with a primary focus in physical climate risks and materiality as it pertains to credit risks across various industries.
Prior to this group, Jennifer was the Public Power Sector Lead in the Global Project and Infrastructure Finance Group, and covered a range of infrastructure sectors including transportation, social infrastructure and power projects in the Americas. She also led new power project finance and public-private partnership rating assignments.
Jennifer launched the Infrastructure in Emerging Markets’ series, and is the author of several reports on PPPs, power and drillship transactions including special comments on airport concessions, express tolled lanes, credit enhancements and power project carbon transition. She recently published climate-related reports on physical climate risk assessments and credit impact of urban floods.
She is the receiver of three Moody’s Research Awards, including the report on Hydrogen – Electric Utilities and Power Projects. She is a frequent speaker and presenter at various industry conferences, including the US Department of Energy – Hydrogen Shot Summit in 2021. Prior to joining Moody’s, Jennifer worked at the World Bank as an energy finance specialist in the Latin American and Caribbean and Africa regions where she helped co-author the Brazil Low Carbon Case Study report, and worked on large scale electricity distribution rehabilitation projects in Brazil, Honduras and Malawi. Prior to the World Bank, Jennifer worked at BNP Paribas covering North American utilities, and at the Royal Bank of Scotland and at Credit Agricole covering media and telecom. She has a Bachelor of Science and Business Administration in Finance and Accounting from Drexel University and a Masters from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University (SIPA) with a concentration in International Energy Management and Policy. She is currently pursuing a Certification in Sustainable Water Management from Columbia University.