Seeking a sustainable economic basis for insurance

We are all familiar with insurance products. Insurance is a form of risk-sharing that dates back centuries. In the modern world, it is a major business with sizeable advertising budgets and it generates substantial profits for its owners. Though some insurance service providers offer grants to fulfil ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) and other requirements, the model is principally one of profit-generation.

An alternative model, challenging the dominant market paradigm, is founded on funding nature recovery through surplus revenues beyond operational costs. Funding would be reallocated locally to insured properties to fund nature recovery schemes that have been proposed by nature-focused partners (mainly, but not exclusively, NGOs). Proposals for nature recovery schemes are assessed for optimal beneficial impacts using the Ramsar-adopted RAWES (Rapid Assessment of Wetland Ecosystem Services) framework. 

This change of paradigm could generate substantial funds for nature recovery, given the many millions of properties across Britain for which payment of insurance premiums is a routine requirement. Insure4nature, spinning out from Defra-funded research, is founded on a novel model of redirecting surplus revenue from insurance premiums into nature-positive work, challenging the established profit-centred insurance service model.

This webinar, with Dr Mark Everard and Nigel Greenwood, presents a case study on Insure4nature, exploring an alternative economic approach to funding nature recovery schemes in the UK. This case study details the need for new funding models that support nature restoration and the implementation of practical nature-based solutions by Insure4nature. The webinar includes two presentations exploring the redirection of funds into nature restoration and the evaluation of recovery schemes through a scientifically evaluated improvement framework, finishing with a Q&A.