Addressing Insurability: A Playbook for Investing in Place-Based Resilience

The report argues that 'insurability' is increasingly determined by the resilience of the surrounding environment (place-based resilience) rather than just individual asset protection. It identifies a market failure where place-based resilience is under-financed because benefits are distributed across many actors while costs are concentrated. To address this, the document proposes four priority interventions: improving risk-decision data, creating innovative financing structures, establishing recognized resilience metrics, and aligning incentives to capture co-benefits. The playbook provides a framework for stakeholders—including insurers, governments, and investors—to move from fragmented risk management to coordinated, place-based action.

• Insurability, defined as the availability of adequate insurance coverage at an affordable price, is increasingly dependent on the resilience of the locations where assets are situated, rather than just the resilience of the assets themselves.
• Global insured losses from natural catastrophes are rising, with 2025 losses reaching $107 billion and 2026 trend losses estimated at $148 billion according to Swiss Re.
• Place-based dependencies, such as drainage systems and vegetation management, can significantly impact business interruption costs, which often exceed direct physical damage losses.
• A lack of shared, granular risk data leads to inconsistent risk ratings for the same asset across different financial actors, such as lenders, insurers, and investors.
• Incorporating place-based resilience measures into insurance models can significantly reduce modelled losses; for example, adding green buffers in Paradise, California, reduced modelled losses by 27%.
• Resilience investments typically yield high returns, with some analyses estimating returns of more than $10 over a 10-year period for every $1 invested, though these benefits are often diffused among multiple stakeholders.
• Resilience districts, such as those piloted in California and Connecticut, provide a legal mechanism to pool funding and capture the uplift in property values to pay for long-term risk reduction.
• Community-based catastrophe insurance (CBCI) can address the global protection gap by allowing a single community institution to arrange parametric cover for multiple households, as seen in a New York City pilot.
• Place-level recognition systems, such as the US Community Rating System (CRS), incentivize municipalities to manage flood-plains by providing insurance premium discounts to residents.
• Aligning resilience investments with co-benefits, such as carbon sequestration or biodiversity gain, can strengthen the business case and unlock new revenue streams through environmental markets.

APA

World Economic Forum (2026). Addressing Insurability: A Playbook for Investing in Place-Based Resilience. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Addressing_Insurability_a_Playbook_for_Investing_in_Place_Based_Resilience_2026.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Addressing Insurability: A Playbook for Investing in Place-Based Resilience. 2026. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Addressing_Insurability_a_Playbook_for_Investing_in_Place_Based_Resilience_2026.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Addressing Insurability: A Playbook for Investing in Place-Based Resilience |date=September 2026 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Addressing_Insurability_a_Playbook_for_Investing_in_Place_Based_Resilience_2026.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2026addressing, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Addressing Insurability: A Playbook for Investing in Place-Based Resilience}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2026}, month = sep, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Addressing_Insurability_a_Playbook_for_Investing_in_Place_Based_Resilience_2026.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }