Private Credit Questions Pension Trustees Should Be Asking Now

This is a resource for institutional investors, including pension trustees, seeking to better understand what recent turmoil in private credit could mean for their portfolios. Private credit refers broadly to privately negotiated loans originated by nonbank financial companies like private funds (often managed by big-name private equity firms) and other asset managers. These loans are […]

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Our Current Insurance System Is Failing Us and Insurance Commissioners Can Do Something About It

Insurance commissioners have varying levels of authority over pricing across different states, ranging from significant authority to deny insurance companies’ rate increase requests if they are excessive or inadequate, to being able to enforce compliance only after insurance companies set their own rates, to having no meaningful authority to review and reject rates at all. 

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States Must Strengthen Oversight of Homeowners Insurance Rate Increases
White silhouette of a family and a house against a green grass background

State insurance commissioners and legislators play a critical role in determining the insurance premiums people pay for their home insurance.[1] Insurance companies have increased homeowners insurance premiums by an average of 24 percent from 2021 to 2024 nationwide.[2] Premium rates are rising far faster in many places across the country including in a geographically diverse […]

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FIRE SALES TO WALL STREET: A Review of Government-Sponsored Residential Note Sales

Growing Wall Street control of single family homes is a contributor to our housing crisis, with mega single-family investors (those who own more than 1,000 homes nationwide) controlling an estimated 446,000 homes as of January 2025. Nationally, the presence of corporate landlords in a community has been associated with raised rents, junk fees, reduced maintenance, and increased evictions. 

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Letters to the Regulators: AFREF Opposes Trump CFPB Effort to Eviscerate Small Business and Farm Lending Disclosure

View or download a PDF of the letter here AFREF submitted a comment opposing the Trump administration effort to undermine civil rights and fair lending law by severely weakening the small business and farm lending disclosure rules that would exempt half of all loans, reduce essential data collection, and exclude farm lending entirely. 

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Unequal Burdens Private Equity-Backed Fossil Fuel Assets and the Global South

Topic: Climate Finance & Insurance, Private Equity and Private Funds In a new report, Private Equity Climate Risks examines how the Global South is unfairly burdened by private equity’s investments in fossil fuels. While the Global North is responsible for the vast majority of excess emissions, communities of color in the Global South are hit hardest by the […]

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Letters to the Regulators: Letter to the California Department of Insurance Highlighting the Need for Climate Risk Planning

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Public Citizen sent a letter in response to the California Department of Insurance’s Long-Term Solvency Planning Proposal, highlighting the need for insurers to comprehensively address both physical and transition risks across underwriting, investing, and operations.  “Insurers need to develop climate plans that encompass both climate mitigation and climate adaptation […]

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AFREF Opposes the Crypto Exchange Coinbase’s Attempt to Get a Bank Charter

AFREF filed comments in opposition to giving Coinbase, the nation’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, its own bank charter. The proposed new crypto bank would impermissibly combine commerce and banking, create giant risks to the financial system and economy when the next crypto crash inevitably occurs, and gives Coinbase the public benefits of being a member bank of the […]

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