Reflections on disaster loss trends, global climate change and insurance

This chapter summarizes salient findings from the NCCARF-funded report entitled 'Market-based mechanisms for climate change adaptation' by McAneney et al. (2013). It first examines the mechanisms responsible for the increasing cost of natural disasters, the implications of this for climate change adaptation, and briefly explores the capacity of insurance markets to incentivise such adaptation. The chapter summarizes recent Australian scholarship as well as efforts to estimate the timescale at which an anthropogenic climate change signal might be detectable in US hurricane loss data. It also addresses the potential for insurance to be a positive actor in helping to reduce the risk to property by extreme weather that may be influenced by future climate change. After reviewing government involvement in the provision of natural catastrophe insurance, the chapter ends by presenting some brief observations about the challenge posed by the rising toll of natural disasters.