National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
When
Financial losses due to extreme weather events are increasing. Insurers, states, and the federal government are all part of an extensive insurance and recovery system in the U.S. Along with homeowners, utilities, infrastructure managers, and others all absorb some portion of risk of loss due to extreme weather. This system is becoming financially unsustainable and unable to appropriately respond to the current risk landscape. The way to repair the system may appear to be a straightforward economic solution, but the range of responses in terms of how to share and mitigate risk are driven by a mix of business interests, policy, household economics, individual risk perception and tolerance, and shared community attitudes.
The final webinar in the series will address insurance more broadly as a form of adaptation, and the limits to insurance in terms of spreading risk and risk reduction, its business model, and resilience for individuals and communities. Questions to explore include:
- What are the limits to the idea of insurance as adaptation? What are the opportunities there?
- How do we configure a broader range of actions, including insurance, that creates a safer world?
- What are alternative ways to manage risk if insurance is no longer available, particularly for those who would be most impacted by loss of insurance?