AGL 40.00 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
AIRLINK 132.75 Increased By ▲ 3.22 (2.49%)
BOP 6.87 Increased By ▲ 0.19 (2.84%)
CNERGY 4.58 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-1.08%)
DCL 8.91 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.34%)
DFML 42.85 Increased By ▲ 1.16 (2.78%)
DGKC 84.60 Increased By ▲ 0.83 (0.99%)
FCCL 33.00 Increased By ▲ 0.23 (0.7%)
FFBL 76.51 Increased By ▲ 1.04 (1.38%)
FFL 12.20 Increased By ▲ 0.73 (6.36%)
HUBC 110.25 Decreased By ▼ -0.30 (-0.27%)
HUMNL 14.42 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-0.96%)
KEL 5.56 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (3.15%)
KOSM 8.30 Decreased By ▼ -0.10 (-1.19%)
MLCF 39.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-0.23%)
NBP 65.98 Increased By ▲ 5.69 (9.44%)
OGDC 199.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.66 (-0.33%)
PAEL 26.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.50 (-1.88%)
PIBTL 7.62 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.52%)
PPL 159.30 Increased By ▲ 1.38 (0.87%)
PRL 26.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.58 (-2.17%)
PTC 18.50 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (0.22%)
SEARL 81.90 Decreased By ▼ -0.54 (-0.66%)
TELE 8.13 Decreased By ▼ -0.18 (-2.17%)
TOMCL 34.48 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.09%)
TPLP 9.02 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.44%)
TREET 16.88 Decreased By ▼ -0.59 (-3.38%)
TRG 59.70 Decreased By ▼ -1.62 (-2.64%)
UNITY 27.55 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (0.44%)
WTL 1.41 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (2.17%)
BR100 10,627 Increased By 220.4 (2.12%)
BR30 31,916 Increased By 203 (0.64%)
KSE100 98,938 Increased By 1609.8 (1.65%)
KSE30 30,786 Increased By 593.7 (1.97%)

When an April 2015 earthquake ravaged Nepal, killing 9,000 people and destroying half a million homes, insurers say the money paid out to victims amounted to less than a tenth of that received by Americans hit by winter snowstorms earlier in the year. The figures reveal a huge potential market yet to be tapped in the developing and emerging world, major insurers said at an annual four-day gathering of billionaires and the political and business elite in Davos, Switzerland, which wrapped up Saturday.
Illustrating the paucity of insurance taken out in developing and emerging markets, re-insurance group Swiss Re's initial estimates indicate that the $6 billion (5.5 billion euros) in wreckage caused by the Nepal quake resulted in payouts of just $160 million. By contrast, the US storms two months earlier caused $2.7 million in damage but resulted in insurance payments amounting to $2.1 billion.
"The difference between the storms in the United States and the earthquake in Nepal is an extreme comparison that really highlights the gap in terms of protection," said Esther Baur, head of global partnerships at Swiss Re, which provides insurance to other insurance firms in case disaster strikes. "But it does not need to be like that," she said. "Insurance is here to put a plan in place beforehand." Worldwide, 70 percent of the damages wrought by natural disasters are not insured, according to Swiss Re, the world's second-largest reinsurer after Munich Re.
But expanding into developing markets presents important challenges. When people have fewer resources to subscribe individually to insurance, their governments have to shoulder a greater responsibility, placing public finances at risk. In this context, insurers must turn to new tools, said Baur, who leads a Swiss Re unit dedicated to partnering with governments, non-governmental organisations and other institutions such as the World Bank. In Bangladesh, for example, Swiss Re launched a flood insurance product in co-operation with Oxfam and the local authorities.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2016

Comments

Comments are closed.