Workshop on innovative insurance solutions

Climate change is making its mark on weather worldwide: many regions are having to contend with increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and tropical storms.

Climate change is making its mark on weather worldwide: many regions are having to contend with increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and tropical storms. As part of its International Climate Initiative (ICI), the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) is therefore promoting projects designed to improve adaptation to climate change impacts. Developing innovative insurance solutions is one priority of those projects. Such activities aim to ensure that people in newly industrialising and developing countries gain rapid access to the money they need to implement adaptation measures or compensate for climate-induced loss or damage. ICI insurance projects are operating in countries such as China, Ghana, Kenya and Peru.

Many stakeholders in policy-making, business, science and civil society are involved with innovative climate insurance approaches. BMU would like to facilitate communication between them and gather fresh impetus for ICI. The ministry hosted therefore a workshop on the subject of Climate Insurances on 1 February 2011. In addition to presentations of individual projects, there were opportunities to network with other participants and discuss the way forward. A key issue was to determine what types of projects in the fields of climate-related insurance solutions and risk management ICI should promote in future. 

During the workshop participants exchanged ideas on the market outlook and on the development/international cooperation point of view. They discussed new project approaches, initial outcomes, lessons learnt from current projects, and possible starting points. In addition, the topic of climate insurance was considered in the context of international negotiating processes. 

Event title: Climate Insurances
Date: 1 February 2011
Place: GIZ Representation in Berlin, Reichpietschufer 20, 10785 BerlinFacilitator: Dr Julius Spatz, GIZ, Head of Section - Policy and Strategy, Strategic Corporate Development Unit
Participants: Representatives of the international insurance industry, GIZ, KfW and BMZ, index insurance experts