Rich debate on insurance and climate adaptation at DG CLIMA workshop
On 2 February 2016 the European Commission’s climate directorate held a workshop on insurance and climate-related disasters, with speakers from DG ECHO, Insurance Europe, Munich Re, Swiss Re and three national schemes.
The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) organised the workshop on 2 February 2016, and the ENHANCE report on it followed on 9 February. Participants came from Member States, the insurance industry, NGOs, city networks and international organisations.
The speakers and their topics:
- Ian Clark (DG ECHO) on EU insurance policy and the follow-up to the Green Paper on disaster insurance;
- Carmen Bell (Insurance Europe) on the insurance protection gap and land-use planning;
- Peter Hoeppe (Munich Re) on the cost-efficiency of loss prevention;
- Charlotte Paterson (Swiss Re) on the Economics of Climate Adaptation methodology;
- Pedro Garret (University of Lisbon), Francisco Espejo (Spain’s Insurance Compensation Consortium) and Mia Ebeltoft (Finance Norway) on national insurance arrangements.
The national contributions put three different arrangements side by side, from a Portuguese university perspective to the Spanish consortium and the Norwegian industry body. The Spanish and Norwegian models are described in the profiles of the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros and the Norwegian Natural Perils Pool, and the gap that Insurance Europe raised is covered on the protection gap page.
A follow-up workshop was planned before the summer of 2016. ENHANCE linked the debate to its own work on reforming insurance schemes and announced a forthcoming policy brief on insurance instruments and disaster resilience.