Sectoral Activities: Insurance Strategy & Briefing

Strategy

The successful implementation of NbS in freshwater restoration relies heavily on collaboration and coordination across sectors due to their interdependencies and shared reliance on healthy ecosystems. Each Sectoral Strategy highlights key connections with others, emphasizing the need for integrated approaches to overcome challenges and leverage opportunities for transformation.

The Insurance Sector plays a cross-cutting role by managing risks and losses for sectors like Agriculture, Peat Extraction, and WSS. By integrating NbS into risk management strategies, Insurance companies can mitigate climate-related risks such as floods and droughts. This approach not only reduces financial risks but also encourages sectors to adopt practices that enhance ecosystem resilience. For example, promoting NbS for flood mitigation in Agriculture benefits insurers by lowering payouts for climate-related damages. To scale these efforts, supportive policies like the NRL are essential, alongside innovative Insurance products that incentivize NbS investments and reward sustainable practices.

Briefing

Insurance plays a key role in supporting climate actions – through both life and non-life insurance products. As the knowledge of how Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can mitigate floods and droughts increases, the insurance sector is developing products to take account of potential risk reduction to insured assets; as well as how to insure NbS themselves. Therefore, the insurance sector can be an important enabler and intermediary in providing incentives to adopt. MERLIN will help explore data sharing and new products as well as embedding NbS further in insurance regulatory frameworks.

Strategy authors: Audrey Vion Loisel (ICATALIST), Elena López-Gunn (ICATALIST), Mia Ebeltoft (Climate Risk Advisory), Florentina Nanu (Business Development Group).

Briefing authors: Elena Lopez-Gunn, Audrey Vion Loisel, Mia Ebeltoft, Silke Nauta, Merijn Hougee, Anna Bérczi-Siket, Kirsty Blackstock