Land

Clouds over Bank weather insurance

22 September 2009

The World Bank has published several papers on its pilot programmes for index-related insurance in developing countries to hedge against weather-related risks. They vary from support for local insurance companies to weather derivatives sold in international financial markets. According the Bank, private insurance should be seen as supplemental to public intervention and other forms of support such as cooperatives. A September briefing from the Bretton Woods Project, however, faults the Bank for failing to assess the broader implications of partly relying on private insurance and unregulated international financial markets to manage weather risks.

The briefing can be found here.