Overview
On 10th March 2026, the Insurance Development Forum (IDF) convened senior leaders from the insurance industry, regulators, and public-sector institutions at the London Stock Exchange to advance practical solutions for increasing the insurability of natural catastrophe risks in emerging and developing economies.
The discussions reinforced a central conclusion: increasing insurability is a necessary condition for closing protection gaps—but it is not sufficient on its own. Insurance plays a critical role in financial resilience, yet it must be deployed alongside risk reduction, sound public policy, and development finance to deliver systemic impact.
This convening focused on how to expand the boundaries of insurability as part of a broader, coordinated effort to strengthen resilience and narrow protection gaps globally, building on the recommendations in the IDF paper on Increasing Insurability to Close Protection Gaps.
Purpose of the Convening
The session was designed to move beyond analysis toward a shared understanding of how insurability can be advanced in practice, and how it fits within the wider resilience agenda.
Participants aligned around three key principles:
- Insurability is dynamic—it can be expanded through targeted interventions
- Insurance is one tool within a broader risk management toolkit
- Public and private actors must act together to make more risks insurable and more solutions accessible
The focus was therefore on identifying practical actions that expand insurability while reinforcing complementary approaches such as mitigation, adaptation, and public financial protection.
Core Themes and Priority Actions
The discussions coalesced around six interrelated themes that together define a practical agenda for increasing insurability as part of closing protection gaps.
1. Creating Political Will and Aligning Incentives
Expanding insurability requires sustained political commitment and clearer alignment between policy, finance, and risk management.
Key priorities include:
- Elevating insurability within global policy agendas through institutions such as the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, G20, G7, V20 and with the support of insurance supervisors
- Aligning incentives so that risk reduction, financial protection, and insurance reinforce one another
- Integrating risk financing strategies into development and fiscal planning
- Encouraging recognition of risk transfer in sovereign credit risk assessments
2. Strengthening the Enabling Environment
Improving insurability depends on creating conditions in which risk can be effectively understood, priced, and transferred.
Key priorities include:
- Removing legal and regulatory barriers that constrain insurance market development
- Enabling cross-border risk transfer and diversified capital flows
- Incentivising and supporting innovation
- Reducing frictional and operational costs
- Supporting regulatory frameworks that encourage innovation while maintaining stability
3. Scaling Insurance Solutions: Achieving Size, Speed, and Replicability
A central constraint to expanding insurability is not only what products exist, but whether insurance solutions can be deployed at sufficient scale to matter.
Participants emphasized that transactions must be larger, faster to execute, and replicable across contexts if private capital is to be mobilised sustainably.
Without adequate deal size and execution efficiency, insurers and reinsurers will not participate at scale, and risks will remain effectively uninsurable due to insufficient pooling and diversification.
This challenge of scale—defined by transaction size, speed of execution, and repeatability—was identified as one of the most binding constraints to closing protection gaps.
Key priorities include:
- Structuring insurance and risk transfer transactions at sufficient scale to attract sustained insurer and reinsurer participation
- Aggregating demand across countries, sectors, or portfolios to achieve larger and more diversified risk pools
- Reducing transaction complexity and timelines so that deals can be executed more efficiently and repeatedly
- Designing programmes and platforms that enable replication, rather than bespoke, one-off transactions
- Aligning public finance, development finance, and insurance capital to support scalable programme design
4. Developing Fit-for-Purpose Insurance Products and Mechanisms
Alongside the need for scale, insurers must continue to develop products and mechanisms that are fit for purpose, responsive to user needs, and appropriate to different risk contexts. Product innovation remains essential—but it must be pursued in ways that support, rather than fragment, scalable deployment.
Key priorities include:
- Expanding fit-for-purpose solutions, including parametric and index-based products, where they add value
- Leveraging embedded insurance and distribution partnerships to reach underserved populations
- Supporting risk pooling mechanisms that improve diversification and affordability
- Considering mandatory or opt-out approaches, where appropriate, to increase participation and pool size
Together, scale and product design are mutually reinforcing: fit-for-purpose solutions are necessary, but without sufficient size, speed, and replicability, insurance will not mobilise capital at the level required to materially reduce protection gaps.
5. Strengthening Data, Knowledge, and Capacity
Insurability is fundamentally constrained by gaps in data, analytics, and institutional capability.
Key priorities include:
- Investing in risk data systems to improve understanding of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability
- Promoting data sharing and transparency across sectors
- Building technical capacity within governments and markets
- Enhancing the ability to design, implement, and sustain risk financing solutions
6. Driving Behavioural Change and Risk Reduction
Increasing insurability and reducing risk must go hand in hand.
Key priorities include:
- Aligning insurance structures with risk reduction incentives
- Strengthening building codes, land-use planning, and enforcement
- Encouraging behavioural change through policy and financial incentives
- Recognising that some risks will remain uninsurable without prior mitigation
Looking Ahead
The convening reaffirmed the value of a focused, action-oriented agenda that brings together public and private stakeholders around shared priorities.
The themes identified provide a clear framework for:
- Scaling practical solutions
- Strengthening collaboration across institutions
- Translating analytical work into implementation
Looking ahead, the Insurance Development Forum will continue to engage with those who attended the convening, as well as other stakeholders to pursue the priority outcomes through:
- Developing more detailed action pathways
- Supporting country-level implementation
- Building coalitions and implementation platforms to accelerate progress
Closing protection gaps is both an economic and societal imperative. The outcomes of this convening underscore that advancing insurability is not a single intervention, but a coordinated effort—requiring leadership, innovation, and sustained commitment across sectors.
