The National Association of Insurance Commissioners is going to force insurance companies to disclose the financial risk they face from climate change, starting May 1, 2010.

The organization announced March 17 that it will mandate disclosures on the climate change risk, as well as actions the insurer is taking to respond to those risks.

Joel Ario, who chairs the NAIC Climate Change and Global Warming Task Force, said climate change will have “huge impacts on the insurance industry,” so information is needed on how companies are “responding to the challenge.”

“As regulators, we are concerned about how climate change will impact the financial health of the insurance sector and the availability and affordability of insurance for consumers,” Ario, who is also Pennsylvania insurance commissioner, said in a statement. “This disclosure standard will give regulators the information we need to better understand these risks.”

The requirement applies to insurers with annual premiums of $500 million or more. They will be required to complete and Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Survey annually, with an initial reporting deadline of May 1, 2010. The surveys must be submitted in the state where the insurer is domiciled, according to the NAIC.

The organization said that the scope of issues covered by the new disclosure requirement is broad, “reflecting the many ways in which climate change will impact the insurance industry.”

In addition to reporting alterations to risk-management and catastrophe-risk modeling due to climate change, insurance companies will also need to report the steps they are taking to engage and educate policymakers and policyholders on climate change risks, as well as whether and how they are changing their investment strategies.