Signal EU launches Climate Insurance Alliance to close catastrophe protection gap

Summary

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled a new Climate Insurance Alliance after the bloc endured a summer marked by drought, wildfires and heatwaves. The initiative brings insurers, investors, risk modellers, public authorities and policyholders together to raise insurance uptake across the region. It targets a protection gap in which only around a quarter of climate-related economic losses in the EU are currently covered by insurance. The alliance plans to identify and spread risk-reduction tools such as parametric insurance, which pays out automatically once set thresholds like rainfall or temperature are crossed, along with group insurance schemes. A separate climate resilience strategy focused on 100 vulnerable European territories is expected to follow. It will be accompanied by a heatwave early-warning plan and an EU water plan aimed at managing drought risk.