Eiopa publishes dashboard to help tackle nat cat protection gap

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (Eiopa) has released a dashboard that depicts the insurance protection gap for natural catastrophes across Europe.

The tool is the first dashboard that presents the drivers of climate-related insurance protection gaps in key areas such as flood, wind and earthquake on a country-by-country basis to identify measures that will help decrease society’s losses in the event of natural catastrophes in Europe.

“In the past, about a quarter of the total losses caused by extreme weather and climate-related events across Europe were not insured. Losses to properties and businesses are expected to grow due to climate change, with the price of insurance also expected to increase,” said Eiopa.

“Over the medium to long term, this can lead to insurance becoming unavailable or unaffordable, resulting in a further widening of the insurance protection gap,” it added, as insurers and reinsurers across and the world look to cash in on spiralling property-catastrophe lines in coming renewals.

The dashboard brings together data on economic and insured losses, risk estimations as well as insurance coverage from 30 European countries.

It presents the data in four different views:

• Current view: Using modelling data, this view indicates the current protection gap according to a particular peril (such as flood or earthquake).
• Historical view: Using data of insurance coverage and economic losses from 1980 to 2021, this view presents a historical protection gap according to a particular peril.
• Country view: This view presents additional information of the current protection and historical protection gaps for each country.
• Country insurance view: This view presents information on how natural catastrophes are covered by country.

Eiopa said the dashboard enables evidence-based decision-making on measures to improve society’s resilience against natural catastrophes. It should also help to increase the awareness of the protection gap and promote a science-based approach to protection gap management and policymaking, said the supervisory authority.

“This approach will help in identifying regions at risk, protection gap risk drivers as well as defining proactive prevention measures. The dashboard will be updated regularly,” it added.

Eiopa said that by releasing this dashboard, it delivers on its commitment made on the occasion of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to finalise the dashboard, as part of its overall support to the insurance and occupational pensions sectors in tackling climate change.

The dashboard is one element of Eiopa’s approach to address protection gaps.

“Addressing gaps effectively requires a broad view, taking into account not only how gaps are measured, but also both the supply and demand sides of insurance. Eiopa is addressing all three aspects in its current work as part of its sustainable finance activities 2022-2024, with the goal of facilitating the transition to a more sustainable and resilient economy,” said the body.