Overview
Insurers provide insurance coverage and risk financing solutions to protect communities, assets, and corporates from the physical impact of climate risks such as natural disasters. To strengthen the sector’s ability to support the risk financing needs in the region, we can enhance key enablers such as data and technology, and leverage alternative risk financing tools such as insurance-linked securities to deliver better solutions and protection.
One-third
of global natural disasters occurred in Asia Pacific
Over the past 30 years, about one-third of global natural disasters occurred in the Asia Pacific RegionRecord Climate Disasters in Asia-Pacific push millions to breaking point, December 2020, Reuters , with the region facing a record number of climate-related disasters in 2020.
US$50 billion
economic cost of catastrophes in Asia Pacific
Yet, there remains a significant protection gap in the region. In 2021 alone, the economic cost of catastrophes in the Asia Pacific region was US$50 billion, accounting for 18% of the global total. However, Asia is significantly underinsured at only 17% of the total economic cost compared to the global average of 57%.Natural disasters cost Asia-Pacific US$50 billion last year, of which just US$9 billion was covered by insurance, says Munich Re, January 2022, South China Morning Post
MAS’ Initiatives
Insurance-Linked Securities Grant Scheme
MAS supports the development of the Insurance-linked securities (ILS) market in Singapore through enhancing the regulatory, tax and legal infrastructure, and incentivising ILS issuers to domicile their ILS in Singapore through the grant scheme. Insurance-linked securities is an alternative risk financing solution that allows risk carriers to transfer their peak portfolio risks to capital market investors, including natural catastrophes, thereby playing an important role in disaster risk management by providing additional insurance capacity.
Learn more information about the Insurance Linked Securities Grant Scheme.
Natural Catastrophe Data Analytics Exchange (NatCatDAX)
MAS supported the launch of NatCatDAX to address the lack of holistic and good quality data for natural catastrophes in the region and the resulting growing protection gap. NatCatDAX is a public-private partnership that is led by the Institute for Catastrophe Risk Management (ICRM) of the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore (NTU) in collaboration with the insurance industry and supported by MAS.
Global-Asia Insurance Partnership (GAIP)
GAIP is a leading global Centre of Excellence in insurance and risk management, with a focus on Asia. It is a tripartite partnership between the global insurance industry, regulators and policymakers, and academia, to build long-term resilience and close the protection gap in Asia.
GAIP will empower the insurance industry and regional policymakers to address both existing and new protection gaps in the region. Climate risk and pandemic risks have been identified as the two initial focus areas of the GAIP.
The GAIP consists of three pillars to drive significant synergies. The three pillars are as follows:
- Living Lab
- Provide scale and a utility approach to collectively incubate innovative insurance solutions for key risks confronting the region (i.e. longstanding problem areas which need new approaches, technology and data such as longevity, health) as well as new and emerging risks (e.g. environmental liability and climate change risk, Industry 4.0 risks). The Living Lab seeks to tackle market-wide issues that cannot be dealt with by a single company, and will set the foundation for insurers to create innovative solutions to address key risks confronting the region.
- Policy Think-Tank
- Conduct independent research to support policy decisions in assessing, quantifying, and mitigating emerging risks in the insurance industry.
- The Policy Think-Tank will be a first-of-a-kind platform for industry to engage and coordinate with regulators to generate neutral, practical research and advice on policy pertaining to key risks and issues in Asia (e.g. infrastructure, insurtech, retirement). It will also inject an active Asian voice and agenda, which is currently missing from key global insurance think tanks and bodies.
- Talent Development
- Grow a pipeline of skilled insurance talent with cutting edge skills in emerging areas like big data and artificial intelligence across the entire career pathway to meet the demands of the region’s growing insurance markets.
GAIP will look at climate and deliverables include having better data and climate indices that can support more accurate risk modelling pricing and solutions. The GAIP policy think tank, which involves regulators, would also closely examine climate risk liability pricing approaches.
Learn more information about the Global-Asia Insurance Partnership.