Publication:
Insurance and Climate Change : Scoping Paper

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (369.89 KB)
257 downloads
Published
2009-06-25
ISSN
Date
2013-03-26
Editor(s)
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework, along with concrete illustrations, that will aid the UNFCCC process in incorporating market-based insurance mechanisms in the arsenal of proposed global climate adaptation tools. A key objective is to define the role insurance can play in helping households, businesses, and countries better adapt to the main known manifestations of climate change, such as weather extremes. The paper defines risk assessment, and outlines the conceptual framework used throughout the analysis. It provides an overview of the significance of public and private partnerships in insuring weather related losses, as well as best practices. It concludes with an overview of lessons learned, and identifies opportunities for market-based insurance strategies in the global adaptation for climate change. A major realization was the importance of establishing a transparent, well-defined policy on government subsidies after disasters, so that individuals can gauge their risks in weather related disasters, and might be encouraged to buy private insurance.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Gurenko, Eugene; Dumitru, Denisa. 2009. Insurance and Climate Change : Scoping Paper. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12957 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Insurance against Climate Change : Financial Disaster Risk Management and Insurance Options for Climate Change Adaptation in Bulgaria
    (Washington, DC, 2014) World Bank Group
    Bulgaria is exposed to nearly all types of climate extremes, including floods, droughts, and others, as well as earthquakes. The combination of insurance products, early warning systems, information campaigns, infrastructure adaptation measures, and strict regulations can be very useful in tackling the negative climate change impacts. This note provides an overview of the insurance sector s contribution to climate change - related risk prevention and highlights some of Bulgaria s ongoing disaster risk management (DRM) efforts. The note aims to raise awareness and emphasize the role that financial disaster risk management (FDRM), including insurance, can have in climate change adaptation. Based on a desk review and preliminary in-country stakeholder consultations, the note s findings are meant to motivate new thinking and serve as an engagement tool for ongoing in-country discussions, as well to help identify analytical work to be carried out in the future. Based on the preliminary review of Bulgaria s specific context, several ideas are being put forward to be further explored in the ongoing discussions toward creating FDRM products to address the major natural disasters (in particular, floods, droughts, and earthquakes) and improving adaptation to climate change. Potential areas of analysis that can be further explored and, as such, plant a seed for future action can focus on promoting risk prevention and deploying insurance instruments, including issues around traditional risk management, technology innovation, compulsory disaster insurance, forecast insurance, and disaster insurance pools. The analysis which will assess the extent of vulnerability of the subjects covered by existing insurance products, can subsequently lead to the decisions on priority insurance products to be introduced in the future.
  • Publication
    Weather Index Insurance for Agriculture
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-11) World Bank
    This paper is a distillation of the findings of the work undertaken by the World Bank. It is deliberately not a collation of case studies, but rather a practical overview of the subject. The purpose of this paper is to introduce task managers and development professionals, who are not insurance sector specialists, to weather index insurance. Ultimately, the paper seeks to take the reader through the main decision points that would lead to a decision to embark upon a weather index insurance pilot and then assists them to understand the technical procedures and requirements that are involved with it. In addition, the paper seeks to advise the reader of the practical challenges and implications that are involved with a pilot of this nature and what they might expect to encounter during the initial stages of implementation. The very nature of an index based product creates the chance that an insured party may not be paid when they suffer loss and/or that they may receive a payment when they have suffered no loss. This paper also does not seek to delve deeply into the technical details and science that lie behind the 'black box' that is at the heart of the index.
  • Publication
    China : Innovations in Agricultural Insurance
    (Washington, DC, 2007-06) World Bank
    This report explains why agricultural insurance is expensive to deliver to small farm households, details risk assessment in four provinces, and recommends China put more resources in developing products that are more suited to an agricultural economy that is dominated by small farm households. The report discusses the important role of government in supporting the legal and regulatory environment, access to data for new product development, risk sharing, and broader education of all stakeholders about the benefits of agricultural insurance. It also explains why this form of subsidy could provide improved incentives versus a direct subsidy for farmer premium. The report concludes with principle recommendations involving scalable product solutions, risk financing strategy, intuitional capacity building and technical assistance, legal and regulatory framework, and government support and public subsidies.
  • Publication
    China : Innovations in Agricultural Insurance, Technical Annexes
    (Washington, DC, 2007-06) World Bank
    This report explains why agricultural insurance is expensive to deliver to small farm households, details risk assessment in four provinces, and recommends China put more resources in developing products that are more suited to an agricultural economy that is dominated by small farm households. The report discusses the important role of government in supporting the legal and regulatory environment, access to data for new product development, risk sharing, and broader education of all stakeholders about the benefits of agricultural insurance. It also explains why this form of subsidy could provide improved incentives versus a direct subsidy for farmer premium. The report concludes with principle recommendations involving scalable product solutions, risk financing strategy, intuitional capacity building and technical assistance, legal and regulatory framework, and government support and public subsidies.
  • Publication
    Government Support to Agricultural Insurance : Challenges and Options for Developing Countries
    (World Bank, 2010) Mahul, Olivier; Stutley, Charles J.
    Governments in developing countries have been increasingly involved in the support of commercial agricultural (crop and livestock) insurance programs in recent years. A striking example is China, where, with support (and premium subsidies) from the central and provincial governments, the agricultural insurance market grew dramatically to become the second largest market in the world (after the United States) in 2008. In India and Mexico, weather-based crop insurance has been developed on a large scale to protect farmers against the vagaries of the weather. Many other countries have investigated the feasibility of agricultural insurance, and some have implemented pilot programs. This book aims to inform and update public and private decision makers involved in promoting agricultural insurance about recent developments in agriculture insurance. The literature is heavily biased toward the practice and experience of a few very large public-private programs in Northern America and Europe, which are driven by large public financial subsidies. This book provides decision makers with a framework for developing agricultural insurance. It is based on an analytical review of the rationale for public intervention in agricultural insurance and a detailed comparative analysis of crop and livestock insurance programs provided with and without government support in more than 65 developed and developing countries. The comparative analysis is based on a survey conducted by the World Bank's agricultural insurance team in 2008. Drawing on the survey results, the book identifies some key roles governments can play to support the development of sustainable, affordable, and cost-effective agricultural insurance programs.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.
  • Publication
    Algeria Economic Update, Spring 2023
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-26) World Bank
    This Algeria Economic Update reports on the main recent economic developments and policies. It places them in a global and longer-term context and assesses the implications of these developments and policy changes for Algeria’s economic prospects. The report is intended for a broad audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals working in/on Algeria. The report is divided into two chapters. Chapter 1 presents macroeconomic developments in Algeria over the year 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, while Chapter 2 describes the short- and medium-term outlook for the Algerian economy.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Argentina Country Climate and Development Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank Group
    The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.
  • Publication
    World Development Report 2006
    (Washington, DC, 2005) World Bank
    This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.