Paper
Towards De-risking Disasters
Taking stock of microinsurance for disaster risk reduction in South and South East Asia
134 pages
This report maps the potential for scaling up index-based disaster insurance for South and South East Asian countries. It concentrates on the experiences of the index-based crop and/or disaster insurance products in five Asian countries: India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines.The report states that disaster insurance is a financial tool to manage the disaster shocks. Index-based disaster insurance products are a new approach in disaster insurance. It reduces the transaction cost and justifies entry of insurers to develop disaster coverage, even for low-income people. Findings from the experiments in the countries of study include:
- Government support helps reach scale of index-based insurance;
- Private insurers enter the index insurance market and disaster insurance market only if they are sure of a substantial market size;
- Role of international donors becomes very pronounced when index insurance is offered for the first time;
- Like traditional insurance, index insurances are still costly for clients;
- Multiple distribution channels need to be employed to attain high outreach.
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