During a panel on “Protecting people Against Rising Climate Risk”, held in Washington DC during The Geneva Association’s PROGRES conference, we discussed the importance of managing risks of extreme weather with an all-of-society approach for keeping insurance available and affordable in the market. Here is a summary of how this important dialogue has evolved:
💠 Economic and insured losses associated with extreme weather events, like wildfires, floods and storms, are rising.
💠 This is mainly due to rising exposure and vulnerabilities, specifically, where and how society is building, aging infrastructure and urbanization; exacerbated by increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather due to climate change.
💠Insured losses have quintupled over the past three decades accounting for a third of total economic losses.
💠In the absence of adequate risk management measures, there are signs of insurers withdrawing coverage for “certain hazards” in “certain regions”, sometimes in response to regulatory pressure to cap insurance premiums.
💠 Risks associated with extreme weather have not been adequately reflected in home prices and still underestimated in the insurance premiums (despite 20% rise in insurance premiums in the last 5 years).
💠 Among most affected are homeowners with long-term mortgages where there is a rising occurrence of extreme weather events.
💠However, this is not a systemic crisis. In the US 2% of housing market (which is is around USD 50 bn) is considered at risk to extreme weather.
💠Attention is being directed to banks: are they assessing risks of extreme weather for mortgage and lending? How are banks managing extreme event risks? Are they working with insurance companies to assess insurability of the home over the period of their mortgage before offering mortgage?
💠 It was noted that the insurance industry invests significantly in research on how to manage the risks and sharing the knowhow with homeowners and governments. (e.g. See work of Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety - IBHS and Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation | Centre Intact d’adaptation au climat)
💠The importance of investing in risk mitigation at the home, community and infrastructure levels was stressed.
💠 Some insurance regulators are working with their government authorities, legislator and partners to enable and promote risk management solutions to attract insurers back.
💠The importance of collaboration and PPPs empowered by multi-stakeholder dialogue to find solutions was highlighted.
Thank you to Robert Gordon (American Property Casualty Insurance Association), Petra Hielkema (she / her) (European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA)), Alice Kane (New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance), Steven E. Seitz (U.S. Department of the Treasury), Raghuveer Vinukollu (Munich Re Specialty - North America) for joining me in this rich and important conversation.