Natural Catastrophe Prevention and Insurance: Market and Policy Issues

Natural catastrophes regularly bring to the forefront the same questions on the prevention and insurance of natural catastrophe risks. The tremendous and rapidly growing losses lead to speculation as to the increasing excess of risk exposure. It is also a matter of concern that insurance coverage is so low in most cases. The growing economics literature on natural catastrophe risks sheds light on the role of insurance market failures and poorly designed public policies on these issues.

Guiding Questions:

• Are actual insurance markets and public policies sufficiently well designed to cover catastrophe risks and to give incentives for prevention actions?
• What type of innovations could be implemented to improve coverage and prevention?
• How could people be better informed on natural disaster risks?
• Which tools could increase incentives for prevention while taking into account equity?
• How could risk diversification be increased for large catastrophe risks?
• What are the connections between natural disaster policies and climate change policies?

Confirmed Contributions:

• Arthur Charpentier, Université du Quebec à Montréal, Canada
• Sam Fankhauser, Grantham Institute, London School of Economics, UK
• Paul Raschky, Monash University, Australia
• Bertrand Villeneuve, Université Paris Dauphine, France
• More tba

More information and registration details will follow soon.