Zurich Insurance Sponsor Spotlight

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00:00Well good morning everyone. Very happy to be here with all of you. Thank you for

00:06being here. And as one of the world's leading insurers, Zurich has a unique

00:10vantage point on climate risks, seeing its financial and physical impacts

00:15firsthand. I'm pleased to be joined by Laurence Maurice, CEO of Zurich Latin

00:19America. Laurence, thank you so much for joining me.

00:21Hi Philippe, good morning everybody. It's a pleasure to be here with you today.

00:27The pleasure is all ours. So I know that you've been working on the Zurich Forest

00:31project. I would love to hear a little bit more about that and also understand

00:36how Zurich and why got involved in ecosystem restoration. Yes, so you saw the

00:42video Zurich Forest. I'm very pleased to talk about Zurich Forest because it's a

00:46project that means a lot to me first of all. And we met Sebastien Salgando, his

00:53wife Lelia and his son Giuliano in 2019 and we were immediately very inspired by

01:01the vision and the vision they had for this institute there and the passion they

01:07were putting in it as well. And so we decided to partner in 2020 to focus on

01:14really breathing back life into the ecosystem of Atlantic Forest in Minas

01:19Gerais. And it's very impressive to see the results of this project. After five

01:26years, thanks to the artwork as well of the team of Instituto Terra, we have very

01:32tangible results. Plus one million trees planted on top of 2.5 already existing. We

01:40have as well a breast forestation part area which is tripled. As well, 80 native

01:49species came back to the habitat. And a lot of around seed collections, seedlings and so

01:55on. So it's a very successful project. But what is this more, even more exciting

02:01about it. It's the impact that we see on communities and on the economy. Because

02:09ecosystem, healthy ecosystem, you have less climate exposure to plants, to eat. You have

02:17as well more security of food and on water. As well, you have an ecosystem, an

02:23economy which is flying, which is functioning. So at a very, very small, not very

02:30small, but at a small scale, this example is showing to us one thing. Resilience of

02:37the economy depends on the resilience of the natural ecosystem. Of course. It's

02:45amazing. And Zurich, as we all know, Zurich's core business is insurance, extending

02:50beyond obviously everything that you're doing ecosystem restoration. And in what

02:56other ways can the insurance industry really act as an enabler for resilience

03:01and sustainable innovation and future?

03:03Insurance companies can have a very, very crucial role, especially due to all what we

03:11hear today about the climate deterioration. And we see this role in three main

03:19direction. So the first one, and maybe the less known parts, is about the risk

03:26expertise. And insurers can here provide support to governments, to public sector, but as well

03:36to companies in assessing the exposure to the climate risks. As well, and after, we can support

03:44these players in defining as well as action plan to mitigate the risks. And in Zurich, we have created

03:52a dedicated entity to cope with that called Zurich Resilience Solution. And we have a team of

04:00experienced risk engineers. We have risk modeling, which is very sophisticated as well, and strong database,

04:07and we are supporting clients. I will take an example. One of our clients in Latin America, which was a little

04:14bit struggling with the topic, asked us for help some weeks ago, and we succeeded to map and to make the

04:21inventory of exposure in five countries, 80 locations. So it's very powerful. The second way insurance can

04:31support as well is about in the waiting climate risk. And here, it's a kind of recovery support after

04:40the loss. More commonly known, I think, for most of you. And the third way is clearly about unlocking

04:49funding to finance the investment in resilience solution, renewable energy, for instance. And here's

04:58a different type of financing possible directly and directly and so on. So you can see three powerful

05:05ways insurers can play a role in the resilience journey. And, you know, you mentioned the increasing

05:15risks of extreme weather that we're all seeing. Obviously, we just saw what happened in Jamaica this

05:21past week. As a global insurer, are you worried about the insurability of these events in the future?

05:27And what could and should we be doing to prevent the growth gaps in all this insurance coverage

05:33that's happening? Yes. So the insurability topic is a little bit complex because insurability,

05:41this notion hinges on whether a risk is random and unpredictable. And why this is to allow a kind

05:50of solidarity and pulling in the pricing approach. If you have a risk which is very frequent, almost

05:59systemic and inevitable, it's no more pulling approach that can be applied. So we need to have a different

06:06approach. It is why for climate risk, we are usually using a geographical risk-based approach,

06:16which means, and I will take an example because it's a little bit technical maybe, if you want to buy

06:21an home insurance, this home insurance price will be higher if you live in a place exposed to plants

06:31or to earthquake, than if you live in a city where you don't have any risk. It is a little bit the

06:36principle of insurability, not societies between a group of customers. So if we come back to the

06:44climate losses now, and you are opening your question with that, we are talking about an amount of $318

06:52billion in 2024. And we know the impacts on financial aspects, emotionally, on the social aspect,

07:02as well as on the populations. And we know that extreme weather events will continue to increase

07:10if we do not do anything, if we do not work on resilience, or risk modeling as well.

07:18So it's why in Zurich we want to help our customers, we are helping our customers, to prevent,

07:26to reduce, and to manage the risk coming from the climate change. We consider that the reduction of

07:36the risk before the loss is the best way than to picking up the pieces when you have a disaster.

07:44So, in a nutshell, what we are saying is better safe than sorry. And so let's put really where we

07:53have to act. So it is on risk prevention first. Well, that's great. And let's change gears a little

07:59bit, because we're obviously all here in Brazil for COP30. So the agenda for this COP is really heavily

08:05focused on adaptation resilience, right? Particularly how to finance the interventions that are required.

08:12What, in your view, should governments and companies and also individuals be looking for if they want to

08:20improve that resilience? Yes, first of all, as you saw, I'm sure, a COP agenda is very focused on

08:27resilience and wants to be the COP of implementation. And for implementing resilience,

08:35key areas that needs to move public sector and private sector have to move from measuring resilience

08:42to building resilience. And to build resilience, it is really instrumental to consider resilience from the

08:51start when defining budgeting and investment decision. And for this, insurers can support as well,

08:59with risk modeling and risk expertise. And as well, there is another aspect which is important to

09:06consider as well, resilience is not an alternative as well to mitigation. Both are going together. And we

09:12have some example in Europe where we discover that some renewable energy sites were subject to extreme risk

09:20risk in kinds of extreme weather events. That means that this exposure can be reduced if we do the investment

09:30on time as well. So it's very important as well to take this into consideration. And in that time,

09:36we know that we will have investments regarding renewable energy. And decision makers can play a role

09:44by integrating resilience when they define the regulation regarding renewable infrastructure investment.

09:52Perfect. Well, I know that we're close to running out of time, but I want to let us,

09:56you know, I want to ask you one last question. If you have a message for COP30 in Brazil, what would that be?

10:04If you allow me, I will have three. So the first one,

10:07risk prevention is a don't worry in the resilience journey. The second one would be,

10:16please use insurance, NOAH, insurance expertise to bring value into the resilience discussion.

10:25And then be very confident that we can get very tangible, escalable action and very strong results.

10:33Perfect. Well, we've run out of time, but I want to thank Lohans for being here with us.

10:37Thank you. And also thank you Zurich Insurance for supporting our event. Thank you very much.

10:41Thank you. Thank you. Success. Thank you.

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