Case studies

The Philippines, one of the most disaster prone countries in the world, needed insurance to protect national government assets and help provinces respond more rapidly and effectively to the impact of natural disasters. The World Bank designed a customized parametric catastrophe risk insurance product for the Philippines that aims to provide fast liquidity after a natural disaster at the national level and to a pool of 25 provinces.

This compilation of case studies deals with the climate-smart agriculture and its potential facilitation through index-based risk management tools, particularly targeted at local, most vulnerable farming communities in India, West Africa, the US and Nigeria. Further studies focus on two risk resilience projects (R4 Rural Resilience Initiative; Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise ACRE). The authors argue that index-based solutions must be adopted in a larger development-related context in order to be fully functional.

This paper explores the concept of public-private insurance partnerships for improved flood risk reduction and risk transfer. The case study focuses on the flood-prone City of London and the Flood Re scheme. The authors reveal that flood insurance partnerships not only provide for risk transfer for flood risk, but may also help to facilitate more holistic flood risk management approaches without an exclusive focus on risk transfer.

This paper describes an application of re/insurance catastrophe modelling to estimates of the impacts of climate change on flood-related losses in Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. This modelling technique, generally a proprietary tool developed in the private sector, is demonstrated to be of value to public policy planning processes and illustrates increases in annual flood losses in the coming century under ‘business-as-usual’, 2 degree and 4 degree warming scenarios.

This paper aims to answer three research questions for each of the three contexts assessed:

- What is the availability and use of financial services?
- How can financial services contribute to building climate resilience in terms of managing climate- related risks and exploiting climate-related opportunities?
- How can policy-makers support the development of financial services to build climate resilience?

Climate change threatens development and economic growth in semi-arid lands. Climate-related risks will increase for individuals, businesses
and infrastructure and have consequences in all sectors of the economy. Climate change will have significant impacts on economic activity and value
chains as economic actors are forced to alter their production systems to maintain their production capabilities under changing conditions.

This working paper applies the triple dividend of resilience framework to disaster risk insurance, in order to explore the potential contribution that insurance can make to building resilience and driving development at different scales in developing countries. While we recognise that insurance is only one component of a larger toolbox of risk financing instruments and of disaster risk management more generally, this paper focuses on disaster risk insurance to add an evidence-based perspective on the (co-)benefits and costs of such mechanisms to the broader debate.

The effective financial management of disaster risks is a key public policy challenge for governments around the world, particularly those faced with significant exposures to such risks and/or limited capacity to manage the financial impacts of natural and/or man-made disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, cyclones, terrorist attacks, industrial and technological accidents, and pandemics.