Featured interview: Daniel Kaniewski

Interview with Daniel Kaniewski, Founder and CEO, Northstar Risk & Resilience, Former FEMA Deputy Administrator, and Marsh US Public Sector Leader.

Interview by: Megan Kuczynski

Dan, it has been a pleasure to collaborate with you on multiple occasions this past year, and it was our honor to have you on the main stage at ClimateTech Connect for the past two editions in Washington D.C.  Given your background as the first Deputy Administrator for Resilience at FEMA, and the depth of your expertise across government, property & casualty insurance, and emergency management, you were top of my list to interview for the inaugural edition of Risk2Resilience. 

QI:  You expertly moderated a main stage panel, Shaping the Future of Disaster Resilience  at ClimateTech Connect this past April with an esteemed group of former FEMA leaders: 

• Pete Gaynor, President, Bright Harbor; Former FEMA Administrator
• Roy Wright, President & CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS); Former FEMA Deputy Associate Administrator for Insurance and Mitigation
• Andy Neal, Managing Director at Aon; Former Chief Actuary at the NFIP

Can you share with our readers some of the top insights and takeaways that came from this discussion, especially in light of the recent FEMA Review Council Report?

It was great to get the FEMA band back together with Pete, Roy, and Andy. A common theme from our discussion was that resilience has to be viewed holistically, not as a bunch of disconnected programs. We understand the role that emergency management, P&C insurance, and the National Flood Insurance Program play in reducing disaster impacts for Americans, and know that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The FEMA Review Council report reinforces that point by embracing the model that we developed back when the four of us were at FEMA: emergency management should be locally executed, state-managed, and federally supported. The Council emphasized the role block grants can play in speeding disaster assistance to communities, and the emergency management community has broadly embraced this idea.

Our consensus view was that the right lesson is not to weaken FEMA, but to modernize it so FEMA can provide post-disaster assistance in a timely manner while also incentivizing communities to invest before disaster strikes.

Q2:  You recently gave the Closing Keynote Address at the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Annual Building Innovation Conference. You said FEMA should be reformed, not eliminated, and gave a powerful, forward-thinking message linking risk transfer to risk reduction. Can you expand upon this concept for our readers, and elaborate on the need for FEMA to meet future challenges? 

I have been making the case to “fix FEMA, don’t fold it” because the agency should evolve from being seen primarily as a post-disaster claim payer into a pre-disaster risk advisor that helps communities understand, reduce, and finance their risk. Insurance, preparedness, and hazard mitigation are all necessary, but today the problem is that federal recovery programs reimburse losses regardless of whether communities have invested in reducing risks beforehand.

This is not a FEMA challenge alone to solve, however. Burden-sharing has to be renegotiated across all levels of government, and that will be the chapter that plays out next.

Q3:  There has been extensive discussion across the industry about closing the protection gap particularly around flood risk. Given your experience, why do you view the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) as so critically important to the resilience of communities and the broader insurance market?

And as climate risks intensify, what trends are you seeing in the evolution of parametric flood insurance solutions? Do you anticipate greater participation from private insurers in the flood market, potentially expanding access and affordability and helping narrow the protection gap?”

NFIP remains critically important because federal flood insurance is still essential to the market, yet Congress has shown limited urgency in providing the long-term reauthorization and modernization the program needs. While the FEMA Review Council focused on greater private market participation, that will be possible only if NFIP continues to serve as the insurer of last resort, which is why meaningful reform and long-term reauthorization remain so important.

I do expect more private insurers to participate over time, but the real opportunity is a complementary market in which NFIP and private flood insurance work together, supported by better pricing, better data, and legislative reforms that can improve affordability rather than pretending one market can replace the other overnight.

Parametric insurance is an additional component of the private-market solution. Innovative products such as community-based catastrophe insurance, in which local governments can use parametric structures to cover groups of properties, have the potential to speed recovery and create stronger incentives for risk reduction.

Q4:  Let’s talk about building codes. You’ve often pointed to Florida’s post-Hurricane Andrew building code reforms as a powerful example of how stronger standards can dramatically reduce both loss of life and economic damage. As climate-driven disasters become more frequent and severe, are you seeing other states and municipalities become more proactive in adopting and enforcing resilient building standards? And where do you think the biggest gaps still exist?”

Following Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Florida overhauled its fragmented system to create the Florida Building Code, which became a global standard for wind-resistant construction. We know modern codes work because they form the basis for resilient structures and have been proven to make a difference when it matters most. I am seeing some states make progress, with coastal states like Virginia and Louisiana climbing the ranks in recent years, and Mississippi taking a huge leap forward by finally requiring testing and continuing education for contractors.

That said, the biggest remaining challenge is inconsistency. Building code adoption and enforcement still vary dramatically across the country because many states leave these decisions largely to local jurisdictions. Even where modern codes are adopted, enforcement capacity can differ significantly from one community to another, often because local building safety departments are stretched thin for resources.

The other major gap involves existing buildings. Our codes are heavily focused on new construction, but many older homes, schools, and commercial buildings were built before modern resilience standards were in place. We need more incentives and investment strategies that support retrofitting and rehabilitation so these structures can better withstand today’s disaster risks. The International Code Council has developed the International Existing Building Code, which provides communities with a practical pathway to upgrade and modernize older buildings without requiring full reconstruction.

Q5:  You have amplified the point that no one sector can solve climate risk alone, and a cross-sector approach is what is required when it comes to disaster resilience. When this is achieved, to use your term, an ‘ecosystem of beneficiaries” is created. Can you share some recent examples of this working well and playbooks for others to follow?

I often say no single sector can solve climate risk alone because the beneficiaries of resilience are much broader than, for example, the insurance industry; they include lenders, builders, governments, and property owners who all gain when losses are reduced. The playbook should be to align incentives early, treat resilience as long-term infrastructure investments, reward communities that invest before disasters, and build partnerships that connect public policy, private capital, and local execution. With reduced losses, governments, private-sector stakeholders, and taxpayers benefit. It is a win-win-win.

A great example of this in action is the growing adoption of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety FORTIFIED standards. We are seeing a powerful synergy where communities build to these higher standards, states provide grants to offset the costs, and insurers offer premium discounts for fortified structures. When government, private capital, and insurers collaborate to prioritize pre-disaster risk reduction in this way, we move away from just reacting to the next catastrophic event and begin to close the protection gap

Q6:  Dan, a huge congratulations on the launch of Northstar Risk & Resilience, a strategic advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations grow, expand, and lead through complexity. Please share more about your vision, especially as it relates to bridging the emergency management and insurance industries. 

Northstar Risk & Resilience is built around a simple idea: organizations need help navigating disaster risk in a way that bridges high-level policy, operational reality, and market-based solutions. To do so, we need to align stakeholders from government and industry.

Historically, emergency management and the P&C insurance industry have spoken different languages. Bridging that divide requires translating operational disaster risk into clear financial terms, which is exactly the gap we aim to fill. Financial resilience is the foundation of recovery, and the future belongs to leaders who can effectively navigate both sides of the equation.