Last week, the House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-California) introduced H.R. 4634 in the U.S. House of Representatives, which would reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) for ten years.

Rep. Waters released the bill prior to a joint hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance, and the Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy entitled “Protecting America: The Reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program.”

The Big “I” submitted a statement for the record which discusses the importance of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) and thanks Rep. Waters for introducing H.R. 4634 to the House. The enactment of TRIA and its extension in 2005, 2007 and again in 2015 successfully stabilized the insurance marketplace and helped eliminate market disruptions that followed the 9/11 attacks. By doing so, Congress created a successful, narrowly tailored, public-private partnership that has operated at virtually no cost to taxpayers.

TRIA is set to expire at the end of next year but, as many insurers note, policies currently in-force will extend beyond the expiration date and may contain clauses that exclude terrorism should the TRIA program end.

The Big “I” believes that reauthorizing TRIA is vitally important to maintaining the stability of the commercial property-casualty insurance market. Any possible reforms to TRIA should be carefully weighed against any number of negative, unintended consequences in the private insurance marketplace and the broader economy. The Big “I” fully supports a “clean” reauthorization bill such as H.R. 4634 without any substantive changes to the program.

Heather Eilers-Bowser is Big “I” counsel, federal government affairs.