Recalibrating the Role of Insurance in Resilience

This report by RMI examines the evolving role of the insurance sector in supporting climate resilience, arguing that current civil society expectations for insurers to drive resilience are exceeding the operational realities of insurance markets.

• The insurance sector, originally designed to protect against risk and absorb financial losses since the late 1600s, is seeing an increased focus on its role in supporting the investment in and adoption of resilience solutions to actively reduce risk.
• The report contends that expectations from civil society regarding the ability of insurers to drive climate resilience are currently outpacing the actual functioning of insurance markets.
• To address the gap between expectations and market realities, the report identifies four common assumptions and five constraints that hinder insurers' capacity to incentivize resilience, and proposes three essential shifts to create a more constructive path forward.

APA

RMI (2026). Recalibrating the Role of Insurance in Resilience. https://rmi.org/resources/recalibrating-the-role-of-insurance-in-resilience/

Chicago

RMI. Recalibrating the Role of Insurance in Resilience. 2026. https://rmi.org/resources/recalibrating-the-role-of-insurance-in-resilience/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Recalibrating the Role of Insurance in Resilience |date=24 June 2026 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/recalibrating-the-role-of-insurance-in-resilience/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2026recalibrating, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Recalibrating the Role of Insurance in Resilience}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2026}, month = jun, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/recalibrating-the-role-of-insurance-in-resilience/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }