2018•12•09     Katowice

Photo: UNICEF/Manuel Moreno Gonzalez

At the UN climate conference COP in Katowice UNU-EHS and GIZ have launched their InsuRisk Assessment Report 2018. In 2017, commissioned by the InsuResilience Secretariat, UNU-EHS and Social Impact Partners developed a tool that provides information on countries’ vulnerability towards climate and disaster risks and their readiness to accommodate insurance solutions.

“In contrast to other risk indices currently available, our tool provides specific information also on the question of how well-positioned countries are to successfully incorporate insurance solutions into their risk reduction efforts, for example, in terms of the reliability of their institutions and the risk awareness as well as financial literacy among the population”, says the report’s scientific co-lead, Dr. Matthias Garschagen of UNU-EHS.

The resulting “Risk and Readiness for Insurance Solutions Assessment Tool” allows comparisons between countries and clusters them accordingly. The information can help governments, insurers and implementing partners to identify countries that are best suitable for the introduction of climate risk insurance solutions.

“The most challenged countries are those, in which a high level of risk meets with a low readiness to accommodate insurance solutions such as Burundi, Afghanistan, Rwanda or Eritrea”, adds co-lead Dr. Michael Hagenlocher of UNU-EHS.

The 2018 report includes an update on the original prototype with the most recent data, updated methodology, and a larger number of countries in the analysis. The tool was designed and is further developed with the aim of making a contribution to the InsuResilience goal, i.e. to enable access to climate risk insurance for an additional 400 million poor and vulnerable people by 2020.

You can read the most recent report here.