Working together to transfer catastrophe risk

During a breakfast co-hosted by Swiss Re and the Inter-American Development Bank, Swiss Re Chairman of America Holding Corp Walter Bell and IADB President Luis Moreno discussed with NGOs, governments and businesses how risk management could be applied to the earthquake disasters in Haiti and Chile.

Though the two earthquakes may seem to have very different impacts, in fact, they are two sides of the same coin: Haiti shows us that to build resilient societies, we must embed risk prevention and risk management into our construction and reconstruction efforts. Yet, as Chile’s experience demonstrates, since we cannot protect ourselves from every disaster, we must also create prudent solutions to transfer catastrophe risk.  Swiss Re’s sovereign risk transfer solutions, such as the Mexico Multicat transaction, can assist governments with transferring catastrophe risk and providing immediate funds for disaster relief efforts.

Walter Bell emphasized, “Prevention and mitigation involve sensible policy and risk education. Such an approach demands a high degree of coordination between the various levels of government and administration, private-sector operators and the insurance industry.”

For more information on Swiss Re’s sovereign risk transfer solutions and country risk management principles, please see Caribbean - From island mentality to watertight alliance and Our approach to country-risk management.