The natural catastrophe protection gap persists, even as efforts to close it have intensified over the past decade. In many countries it is growing and there are no easy solutions to this challenge. But the growing realization of the scope and scale of the problem and the concerted efforts by public and private institutions to address it are reasons for optimism.
There is also the extraordinary potential to harness the power of technology and advancements in data analytics to do more — and to do it faster, better, more efficiently. Technology is not a silver bullet, but there is perhaps no greater game changer in the battle to reduce losses and provide disaster risk financing for natural disasters.
The paper provides an overview of some of the key technological developments underway and highlights some of the key legal, regulatory and public policy issues that arise in this context. It is not intended to be an exhaustive description of developments or to provide a comprehensive discussion of the legal, regulatory and policy issues that are relevant. Rather it simply helps frame the issues and stimulate the important discussions that need to take place around this topic.
