INSURING RESILIENCE - EMPLOYING APPROACHES FROM THE RE/INSURANCE SECTOR TO ENCOURAGE SUSTAINABLE DESIGN & OPERATIONS AGAINST NATURAL HAZARDS.

Abstract:

Over the last quarter of a century the re/insuance sector and its financial regulators have developed a suite of metrics that have guided made a significant contribution to the industry's resilience to natural disasters. In particular the introduction of annual stress tests to evaluate risks to portfolios at 1:200, 1:20 and annual average loss metrics has provided a prism through which to focus science, engineeering and analytical actcities and the supporting data environment. This approach has driven a deeper understanding of the relationship between hazard, exposure and vulnerability of the build enviornment and helped put a quantitative value on physical and operational resilience. In particular has been the recognition that while structures and operations may be distrupted and disabled during a natural disaster or extreme event the critical issue is how quickly and cheaply functions can be reinstated after the event has passed. This has highlighted the value of enabling structures and institutional processes to close down, or even 'break' in a pre-planned way when forces are exceeded to prevent excessive dislocation and allow capabilities to reinstated in an planned and effective manner. New advances in financial regulation are making this increasingly attractive