Climate crisis demands a new insurance industry

This contributor posits that the insurance industry can no longer afford the hidden costs of climate change. (Rajeev Kumar/ALM Media archives)

As debate continues over declined COVID-19 business interruption claims and the virus exclusion, the role of the insurance industry amid global disasters has come into question. The ubiquity of pandemic risk requires enormous, sometimes unaffordable premium reserves to cover damages, which is why insurers routinely carve it and other all-encompassing events out of coverage. Yet, the industry has not approached climate change with the same vigor. Although wildfires and storms accelerate in frequency and severity, they remain core covered perils. What happens when the scale of damages from climate change surpass that of COVID-19?