COP26: New insurance sector and NGO partnership will protect world's most vulnerable from climate risks

Start Network, a coalition of over 50 humanitarian charities, and the Insurance Development Forum (IDF) are today announcing a new partnership to support the development of a new global financial service for the humanitarian sector, which will help communities to get ahead of escalating climate risks.

The new tool, Start Ready, will provide pre-agreed funding at scale for relatively predictable crises like droughts, flooding and heatwaves. It is based on locally led action and intelligence, and uses innovative risk analysis, collective planning, pre-agreed triggers, and pre-positioned financing to anticipate and respond to needs around the world.

Through Start Ready, IDF member companies will provide technical assistance to Start Network members who are working to get ahead of escalating climate risks. This will include support to develop tools that analyse risks, an essential foundation for plans and financing ahead of time.

In addition to technical risk modelling expertise provided by RenaissanceRe, IDF members will provide software to help the humanitarian network with financial modelling and strategic decision-making.

By enabling local humanitarian action before a crisis hits, Start Ready will make funds stretch further and help protect more lives and livelihoods.

Christina Bennett, CEO of Start Network, said: “The time for talking is over - we need action now to protect the most vulnerable communities. The climate crisis is a shared crisis, and we all share the responsibility to act. The IDF’s commitment to delivering concrete action to help humanitarians understand risk is impressive. We are delighted the IDF is partnering with Start Ready, which will help the insurance industry have a transformative impact in communities most vulnerable to the climate emergency.”

AXA Group and Insurance Development Forum Chairman Denis Duverne, said: “As an industry we have consistently recognised that climate change is the biggest challenge of our time. A fundamental pillar of addressing it will be greater access to climate risk information, tools and standards, as well as benchmark metrics that will shed light on the climate risks of today and on future impacts. We are proud to work with Start Network, to drive a major step-change in the effort to open up access to climate risk understanding. This announcement is a testament to the power that collective action can have in the effort to build resilience to climate change.”

These technical partnerships will connect locally-led networks working to anticipate climate risks, with global financing principles that can stretch pre-arranged crisis funding to cover more people.