The risk of natural disasters in the modern insurance

Each year, natural disasters have become the cause of loss of life and large-scale destruction, bringing huge losses of wealth. The analysts state: in recent decades various natural disasters (. Storms, droughts, storms, hail, etc.) occur more often, and almost the only instrument for pecuniary damage is caused to the Insurance Institute for Disaster Management.

The risk of natural disasters in the modern insurance
compulsory insurance, insurance payments, insurance in Russia
Posted: 16/03/2013

Each year, natural disasters have become the
cause of loss of life and large-scale destruction, bringing huge losses of wealth. The analysts state: in recent decades various natural disasters (. Storms, droughts, storms, hail, etc.) occur more often, and almost the only instrument for pecuniary damage is caused to the Insurance Institute for Disaster Management.


Already today, experts warn of the possible consequences of underestimating the growing risk of natural disasters on the background of the special role of the contemporary socio-economic factors, as expected in the future increase in the frequency and severity of adverse weather phenomena should be considered in conjunction with an increase in the concentration of risks, increasing the density of transport communications and cost objects .

According to statistics, over the past 30 years of insurance payments for losses related to weather events, increased 15 times. It is related to the frequency of insurance claims and a rise in cost of buildings, structures, utilities (modern building materials, the availability of expensive machinery and equipment, etc.)

At the same time natural disasters, as we know, does not distinguish between developed and developing countries. But the situation in the insurance sector differs significantly: while in the developed countries are insured 45% of the potential damage in the developing - 3%, which is why such events cause a serious blow to public finances (because in emergency situations to cover the costs for the provision of assistance for reconstruction work on disaster management has to Governments).

The idea of ​​compulsory insurance against natural disasters calls whenever confronted with a specific problem, and the Russian government. So, loudly talking about the need for such insurance after the abnormally hot summer of 2010, large-scale fires .: prompted MOE initiate legislation on compulsory insurance of property against fire. Question sufficiently serious consideration at the highest level, but in the spring of 2011, he was removed from consideration as contrary to the Civil Code (according to the Civil Code, to force the owner to insure the property can not be).

New impetus to the development of the idea came from the White House: the summer of 2012 to the end of the conference call devoted to the discussion of the situation in some regions of Russia in connection with the impact of abnormally high temperatures, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a number of ministries (Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Regional Development, Ministry of Economic Development) in collaboration with the federal executive bodies and associations of insurers to develop to 1 October 2012 the proposal to establish compulsory insurance against natural disasters along the lines that existed in the USSR.

Recall that in the Soviet Union security conditions are completely defined in law (Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet "On compulsory insurance of public property belonging to citizens") and is the standard for all citizens, and compulsory insurance covers all types of real estate and livestock.

To date, the compulsory insurance of property from natural disasters in the world mentioned in only three countries - is at high risk of natural disasters, Turkey, Romania and Iceland (96% of the area located at the junction of three crustal Turkey slabs subject to destructive earthquakes, Iceland - one of the most active on Earth regions of volcanic activity).

Unlike those countries where natural disasters is almost impossible to defend using preventive measures, in Russia the bulk of the destruction is not so much due to the rampant disaster, but because of the unsatisfactory nature of preventive action (remember the 2012 flood in Krymsk) - and this is the basis of the most serious claims to the insurance system of disaster prevention.

Put simply, Russia has experienced a massive poor state of the infrastructure, while the insurance is a protection tool against accidental loss. Whether under these conditions to solve the problem of compulsory insurance system, in whatever form it neither implemented?

According to the data available to date, in some "natural disasters" regions at risk of paying Russia amounts to 15-20% of the total amount of insurance payments on property insurance. In the US and Western Europe, insurers have a truly great experience payments (for example, the hurricane "Katrina" in 2005 resulted in a payout of $ 25 billion.)