Synopsis

The Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management (ICRM) was launched by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in January 2010 with a vision to become Asia’s leading research institute in catastrophe risk modeling and management. Over the years, ICRM has conducted nine Annual International Symposia on important topics including food and water security and climate change, black swan events, extreme events in Asia Pacific, financing natural catastrophes in Asia, public-private partnership in managing catastrophe events, mega-cities of Asia and their evolving risks, and more recently addressing the financial protection gap as well as the natural catastrophe data gaps in Southeast Asia through the Natural Catastrophe Data Analytics Exchange (NatCatDAX) Initiative in 2017, together with an upcoming new initiative planned in 2019 on ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance – Phase 2 (ADRFI-2). This Tenth Annual Symposium will build upon recent symposia insights that have focused on data and the NatCatDAX Initiative. The Tenth Symposium theme is:

Towards Viable Disaster Risk Financing Solutions for SE Asia –
Learning from Global Experiences, Successes and Challenges

This theme is strongly motivated by Asia’s need to close the natural catastrophe protection gap and to find mechanisms to ensure that the recent Asian prosperity gains are not set back by the economic and social disruptions that natural disasters can bring. Already, the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) has launched the ASEAN Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program (ADRFI) which would function as a central coordinating platform for the development of such risk management programs in the region.

The Tenth ICRM Annual Symposium will leverage on last year’s theme of closing the protection gaps by expanding into the domain of sovereign risk financing. Reasons for this is recognition of the fact that viable solutions cannot be achieved without a strong engagement of the governments and knowing how they see catastrophe risk financing from their sovereign perspectives. Given the size of the population and assets at risk, SE Asia urgently needs to develop viable disaster risk financing solutions.

The Symposium will evolve along several overlapping and interacting subthemes addressing global experiences, successes and challenges. These cover:

• How to bring governments into the process to overcome political and policy hurdles. Which schemes make more sense, given the SE Asian geopolitical context. Within this context, what would be proper roles for the private (re)insurance sector.

• Technical aspects of what is at risk, exposure and risk quantification, and articulation of feasible risk financing alternatives.

Renowned speakers from government agencies, regulators, international organizations, (re)insurance industry, modeling agencies, and research institutions will be invited to share their experiences and advices towards viable disaster risk financing solutions for SE Asia. The sessions will also facilitate productive discussions with the delegates via panel discussions. We hope that a key outcome of the Symposium is to help spur collective actions towards developing viable disaster risk financing solutions and narrowing of the protection gap. We invite your participation and contribution towards this effort.

We look forward to welcoming you at our Tenth ICRM Symposium 2019 in Singapore.

Professor PAN Tso-Chien
Executive Director
Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management
Nanyang Technological University
SINGAPORE ​​