Monash Business School’s Green Lab is hosting its third roundtable: Managing risk, value and insurance protection on 14 March. These roundtables are held in collaboration with the National Academy of Public Administration in Washington DC.
The roundtable will cover the impact of extreme weather events on insurance, the future of the insurance industry, and how as global average temperatures rise, the scale and frequency of extreme events is increasing, creating greater loss and damage, corresponding to a rise in insurance premiums.
The roundtable panel will consist of international leading academics and practitioners. Building comparative knowledge, the roundtables are intended to help navigate a pathway forward in the face of global temperature rise exceeding 2 degrees.
A Monash expert is available to talk about the topics of the roundtable.
Dr Michael Spencer, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Green Lab, Monash Business School
Contact: +61 3 9903 4840 or [email protected]
Read more of Dr Spencer’s commentary at Monash Lens
Comments attributable to Dr Michael Spencer:
“With attention focused on insurance and insurability, our third Monash Green Lab
roundtable on Living with 2°C plus will ask whether we are spending too much time
looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Do we spend enough time
understanding risk, how a changing climate increases risk and how we can plan and
invest to reduce risks associated with climate change and extreme events?
“The National Risk Assessment and Adaptation Plan, promised before the end of
2024, is yet to be released. Victoria’s draft 30-year infrastructure strategy notes
climate change presents profound and far-reaching challenges for infrastructure,
‘[but] the government has not set aside funds for adaptation. Infrastructure managers
are not confident the government will fund adaptation projects. Managers are
reluctant to use limited resources to look at climate risks and adaptation actions for
no results.’
“By way of contrast, gains from incremental improvement in insurance are constantly
overwhelmed by the realities of climate-fuelled extreme events. In its monitoring
report on the cyclone and cyclone-related flood damage reinsurance pool (a program
intended to reduce insurance costs in areas of northern Australia), the ACCC says
‘cost savings generated by the pool have been offset to varying extents by other cost
increases.’ These include hardening of global reinsurance markets, extreme global
weather events and price increases of building materials and labour.”
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For any other topics on which you may be seeking expert comment, contact the Monash University Media Unit on +61 3 9903 4840 or [email protected]
