Disaster Insurance Reimagined: Protection in a Time of Increasing Risk 

Abstract
The world is increasingly ravaged by disasters such as floods, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, and pandemics that cause inevitable losses. Beyond the toll on human lives, homes and livelihoods are destroyed. Having funds available after a disaster to finance reconstruction is crucial, preventing the escalation of human misery through poverty and displacement. Insurance is an important source of these funds. Yet, as disasters increase, the insurance system is in crisis. This presentation is based on our forthcoming book on ‘Protection Gap Entities’ (PGEs), which are not-for-profit insurance mechanisms that attempt to address the crisis in disaster insurance. They do so by rebalancing the tensions (paradoxes) at the heart of insurance: who controls the insurance market (the private sector or government); how much is known about the risk (too little or too much); and who should pay (individuals or society). Drawing on 5 years research into 17 of these PGEs operating in 49 countries, we explain how PGEs establish, restore, or maintain insurance in the face of increasing disaster. Joint paper with Konstantinos Chalkias, Eugenia Cacciatori, and Rebecca Bednarek.

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