Insurance experts join city teams to support climate resilience

Through a new secondment scheme described as the first of its type, insurance professionals will work side by side with city leadership teams for three to six months to bolster climate resilience.

The Global Risk and Resilience Fellowship programme is a collaboration between the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), which is a network of global CEOs, insurance group Howden, and the Resilient Cities Network.

The partnership will explore how insurance can be incorporated into climate resilience in cities. It brings together the insurance industry and private sector with city leaders, including Chief Resilience Officers.

The first cohort of insurance professionals, from Howden and Beazley, will be seconded this month to Melaka, Malaysia; Surat, India; Miami-Dade County, United States; Glasgow, United Kingdom; and The Hague, Netherlands.

Lauren Sorkin, Executive Director of the Resilient Cities Network, commented: “As climate change continues to exacerbate the shocks and stresses in our cities, a complete understanding of the risks a city faces is a critical step in building resilience.

“By identifying and mapping future risks, our cities are empowered to make holistic, informed decisions and better allocate finances. We look forward to sharing the knowledge that will come out of this public and private sector collaboration.”

The ambition for the programme is to deploy an additional 20 secondees to cities in the coming three to five years, with the next cohort of Fellows starting in early 2024 across six continents.

Challenges

In his former role as The Prince of Wales, King Charles launched the Sustainable Markets Initiative at the World Economic Forum event in Davos in January 2020.

John Neal, Chief Executive Officer, Lloyd’s, and Chair of the Sustainable Markets Initiative Insurance Task Force, said: “Building resilience is central to the insurance industry’s role of helping businesses, government and society manage risk. But resilience isn’t only achieved by sharing risk, it also comes from knowledge transfer, collaboration and working together towards a common goal.

“This first-of-a-kind fellowship, led by Howden and made possible by the collective effort of the Insurance Task Force, will pair the risk expertise of the global insurance industry, with those at the front lines of making our cities and society more resilient, creating a more sustainable future for all.”

The challenges the Fellows will address include managing the impact of extreme weather such as flooding and heat, the energy transition and reduction of carbon emissions, and online cyber and supply chain disruption.

David Howden, Chief Executive Officer, Howden, and member of the Sustainable Markets Initiative Insurance Task Force, said: “By working in partnership with those who are at the frontline of building urban resilience, the insurance industry has a real opportunity to be a powerful force in delivering a more sustainable future for all.”