The role of hazard insurance is at the forefront of concern for legislators, industry representatives, consumer advocates, property owners and those in the hazards reduction community. Significant research and multiple presentations already have been made regarding the science and methodology behind earthquakes and earthquake insurance. However, the time is right to move toward developing comprehensive public policy options to address this important issue.

Working toward this end, the Western States Seismic Policy Council (a consortia of state emergency managers and geoscientists) and the Council State Governments-WEST (an association serving Western Legislators) have joined efforts by sponsoring a Western United States Earthquake Insurance Summit. Although no one single policy recommendation may result from this Summit, it is the hope of the sponsors that by bringing experts in the field together with policy makers, the issues will be clarified and a set of policy options will be arrayed.

Each of the individual sessions would follow this same format. Presenters would speak about specific aspects of earthquake insurance (exposition). This would be followed by questions from a panel comprised of representatives of the Steering Committee (clarification). The session would end with questions (written on index cards and submitted to a moderator) from the full body (commentary).

In an effort to add value to the conference, a Policy Session Papers volume will be issued before the event. The papers from the session speakers will be compiled and distributed to all attendees (before the conference). This volume will serve to prepare participants and will be an excellent addition to your library.