Risk Financing and Risk Reduction - a Comparison National Arrangements Across Developed Countries and Specific Lessons From Austria 2002-2013 (PAP014340)

Código

PAP014340

Autores

Susanne Hanger, Ajita Atreyac, Joanne Bayera, Anna Loranta

Tema

Flood resilient societies through community preparedness

Resumo

In the face of more frequent and intensive storms and floods insurance arrangements are becoming an increasingly important tool not only to address risk averseness, but also to incentivize risk mitigation and adaptive behavior. Indeed governments are looking to create new insurance arrangements or reforming existing ones. Contrary to existing literature claiming that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we find that there are indeed design choices that can be found more and more frequently across risk-transfer systems and which seem applicable in different contexts: (1) Bundling of catastrophe risk with more standard homeowners?, fire or accident insurance. (2) Private administration and public regulation of insurance; And (3) quasi risk-based premiums with some form of equity mechanism through some form of subsidy. We use a discourse analysis for the case of Austria, where above mentioned features are part of a high level discussion, but so far failed to gain traction and thus being implemented. We find that hierarchical thinking is deeply ingrained in almost all stakeholder groups. While successful flood protection is celebrated, individual awareness of the limits of public protection residual risks is missing and might cause unpleasant surprises in a climate change future.