DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-15
11 The relational urban
geographies of re/insurance
Florida hurricane wind risk
and the making of Singapore’s
catastrophe finance hub
Zac J. Taylor
Introduction
In the keynote speech at the 2019 Singapore International Reinsurance
Conference, a senior Singapore government minister outlined the city-state’s
plans to expand as an offshore property catastrophe re/insurance 1 centre
(Monetary Authority of Singapore 2019). ‘The global economy is undergoing a tumultuous period of change, and facing strong headwinds from a continuously changing and challenging environment,’ Minister Rajah began.
Singapore faced ‘two winds of change – the environmental headwinds, and
political headwinds’ and called for ‘decisive and concerted action to mitigate
these risks.’ The property catastrophe re/insurance industry, ‘by combining
its risk financing capacity, with its risk mitigation capabilities, can play a
huge role in managing these risks,’ the minister argued. Minister Rajah in
turn outlined several interconnected re/insurance market development initiatives underway with Singapore state support, including the recent launch
of a new insurance-linked securities trading market with the capacity to
finance catastrophe risk for Asia.
The minister’s remarks reflect the ways in which coalitions of states,
multilateral organisations like the World Bank, and financial institutions
increasingly turn to the property catastrophe re/insurance sector to manage
the entwined ecological, political, and economic uncertainties of climate
change. Re/insurers constitute a lucrative, multi-billion dollar risk financing
system, one which offsets catastrophe losses across a wide range of geographies. Global reinsurers, or insurers for insurers, promised $625 billion of
protection capital to their clients in 2019, for example (Aon Benfield 2020).
Re/insurers have also emerged as prominent proponents for (and investors)
in a range of climate risk finance experiments. This can be seen in the roll-out
of multilateral disaster risk pools and other insurance products in support
of several sustainable development and humanitarian agendas (Grove 2012;
Johnson 2021), or through the extension of re/insurance instruments and
models services to help non-insurance financial institutions like real estate
11 The relational urban
geographies of re/insurance
Florida hurricane wind risk
and the making of Singapore’s
catastrophe finance hub
Zac J. Taylor
Introduction
In the keynote speech at the 2019 Singapore International Reinsurance
Conference, a senior Singapore government minister outlined the city-state’s
plans to expand as an offshore property catastrophe re/insurance 1 centre
(Monetary Authority of Singapore 2019). ‘The global economy is undergoing a tumultuous period of change, and facing strong headwinds from a continuously changing and challenging environment,’ Minister Rajah began.
Singapore faced ‘two winds of change – the environmental headwinds, and
political headwinds’ and called for ‘decisive and concerted action to mitigate
these risks.’ The property catastrophe re/insurance industry, ‘by combining
its risk financing capacity, with its risk mitigation capabilities, can play a
huge role in managing these risks,’ the minister argued. Minister Rajah in
turn outlined several interconnected re/insurance market development initiatives underway with Singapore state support, including the recent launch
of a new insurance-linked securities trading market with the capacity to
finance catastrophe risk for Asia.
The minister’s remarks reflect the ways in which coalitions of states,
multilateral organisations like the World Bank, and financial institutions
increasingly turn to the property catastrophe re/insurance sector to manage
the entwined ecological, political, and economic uncertainties of climate
change. Re/insurers constitute a lucrative, multi-billion dollar risk financing
system, one which offsets catastrophe losses across a wide range of geographies. Global reinsurers, or insurers for insurers, promised $625 billion of
protection capital to their clients in 2019, for example (Aon Benfield 2020).
Re/insurers have also emerged as prominent proponents for (and investors)
in a range of climate risk finance experiments. This can be seen in the roll-out
of multilateral disaster risk pools and other insurance products in support
of several sustainable development and humanitarian agendas (Grove 2012;
Johnson 2021), or through the extension of re/insurance instruments and
models services to help non-insurance financial institutions like real estate