PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Major weather events are costing Americans and insurance companies millions of dollars.

Ian Ridlon, the executive director and president of the Rhode Island Interlocal Risk Management Trust, spoke to the R.I. House's Climate Change Impacts Commission about those rising costs on Wednesday.

The commission is studying the impacts of climate change in hopes of finding solutions to minimize those effects.

The trust is a risk-sharing organization created in 1986 that has responded to many public-sector disaster claims.

Ridlon told state lawmakers about the different types of assistance the trust offers for businesses, towns and cities though a self-insurance pool.

Rhode Island's geographical risk has increased, as Ridlon noted that there have been several million-dollar responses locally over the last 15 years.

For example, the catastrophic floods of 2010 that devastated parts of Cranston, Warwick and West Warwick caused more than $20 million being paid out for flood losses.

Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy collectively led to more than $3 million in covered losses. More recently, the Nor'easter in January 2024 led to $1.3 million in losses.

“The burden of being in the trust is much less than it would be otherwise, but is it going to continue to be an expense to taxpayers ultimately to pay higher and higher and higher premiums," Ridlon said.

Ridlon said promoting infrastructure evaluations is one way to mitigate future risk when it comes to impactful weather as many of the state's municipal buildings, including schools, are in need of renovations, causing premiums to go up.

“If we could say ideally, let’s make everything nice and new and neat, and buttoned up, I think the costs of the insurance would come down precipitously," Ridlon noted. "But we just don’t have that.”

The trust is currently working on multiple infrastructure improvement projects including flood-proofing the Scarborough Wastewater Treatment facility.

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