How to make climate risk insurance work for the most vulnerable: What next after the Paris Agreement? 

Background:

Climate change threatens sustainable development and resilience, impairs socio-economic development and reinforces cycles of poverty across the globe. Because the risks often fall more heavily on those least able to reduce or recover from them, there is a need for assistance for the most vulnerable people and countries. The absence of economic safety nets which could cushion the adverse impact of these climate-related disasters remains a serious concern.

Well-designed climate risk insurance – when applied in conjunction with other disaster risk management measures and strategies – can protect people against climate shocks by acting as a safety net and buffer shortly after an extreme weather event. In this way, insurance can promote opportunities by helping to lessen financial repercussions of volatility and can stimulate transformation by incentivizing risk reduction behaviour and fostering a culture of risk management.

Objectives:

As outlined in the Paris Agreement, the relevance of insurance as a tool within comprehensive climate risk management has been recognized by policymakers and practitioners around the world. Many actors are currently investing resources in developing and supporting climate risk insurance schemes, and are looking for ways to implement insurance on a larger scale; many of these efforts are specifically targeted at covering the poor and vulnerable in developing countries. Now is the time to learn and adapt from existing pilots and schemes, to ensure that climate risk insurance efforts effectively contribute to supporting poor and vulnerable people in finding climate-resilient development pathways.

Session:

The MCII Side Event contributes to the learning process by presenting the results a study that MCII did in the context of the G7 InsuResilience, called “Climate risk insurance for the poor & vulnerable: How to effectively implement the pro-poor focus of InsuResilience”.

Based on the MCII Pro-Poor Principles for Climate Risk Insurance, experts will elaborate on how insurance tools can be effectively implemented to benefit poor and vulnerable people by bringing in their distinct perspectives and organizational backgrounds.

Panel:

Frank Fass-Metz (BMZ): Status quo of the G7 InsuResilience Initiative and Germany’s support for climate risk insurance.

Laura Schaefer (MCII): THE RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE: MAKING CLIMATE RISK INSURANCE WORK FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE: THE PRO-POOR PRINCIPLES.

Thomas Loster (Munich Re Foundation): THE PRIVATE SECTOR PERSPECTIVE: WHAT DO THESE SEVEN PRINCIPLES MEAN FOR INSURESILIENCE?

Aaron Oxley (RESULTS UK): Views from civil society: The importance of focusing on effectively meeting the needs of poor and vulnerable people.

(tbc) Practical Application of Climate Risk Insurance on the ground: An operational perspective: What do the Pro-Poor Principles mean for on-the-ground implementation of insurance projects?