Our commitments:

The Insurance Development Forum (IDF) is a public-private partnership led by the insurance industry and is supported by international organisations. It aims to optimise and extend the use of insurance and its related risk management capabilities to build greater resilience and protection for people, communities, businesses and public institutions that are vulnerable to disasters and their associated economic shocks.

In 2019, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the German government and members of the IDF entered into a Tripartite Agreement in which they collectively committed to increase insurance protection in climate-vulnerable countries. As part of their commitment, industry members pledged to offer USD 5 billion of risk capacity for climate risk insurance, benefitting up to 500 million people in 20 climate-vulnerable countries by 2025. The commitment aims to accelerate the implementation of risk management and risk financing solutions as a means to strengthen adaptation measures and resilience to climate risks in exposed countries. As a member of the IDF, Swiss Re has endorsed this commitment along with several of its industry peers.

To achieve this commitment, Germany’s KfW Development Bank has provided funding via the InsuResilience Solutions Fund (ISF) and project teams for 16 of the climate-vulnerable countries have been established. Swiss Re currently co-leads six of these country project teams (Ghana, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Colombia) and contributes to an additional five country project teams by providing risk and modelling insights.

Over the course of the year, more than 90 experts from 11 re/insurance companies and more than 50 UNDP representatives from 16 UNDP Country Offices continued to engage in Tripartite work. At the end of 2021, two country projects led by other IDF members were being implemented and two additional projects had been approved by the ISF for grant funding. One project currently being implemented in Peru aims to provide the government with options to cover all or a subset of its more than 50 000 public schools against the impacts of natural disasters. In Colombia, a programme was launched in 2021 to develop a parametric flood and earthquake product, as well as indemnity landslide protection in the city of Medellín.

To meet the commitments of the Tripartite Agreement, Swiss Re and members of the IDF intend to continue to collaborate with climate vulnerable countries by providing risk modelling expertise and working to expand the project pipeline in the respective countries.