TY - JOUR A1 - Tesselaar, Max A1 - Botzen, W. J. Wouter A1 - Haer, Toon A1 - Hudson, Paul A1 - Tiggeloven, Timothy A1 - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H. T1 - Regional inequalities in flood insurance affordability and uptake under climate change JF - Sustainability N2 - Flood insurance coverage can enhance financial resilience of households to changing flood risk caused by climate change. However, income inequalities imply that not all households can afford flood insurance. The uptake of flood insurance in voluntary markets may decline when flood risk increases as a result of climate change. This increase in flood risk may cause substantially higher risk-based insurance premiums, reduce the willingness to purchase flood insurance, and worsen problems with the unaffordability of coverage for low-income households. A socio-economic tipping-point can occur when the functioning of a formal flood insurance system is hampered by diminishing demand for coverage. In this study, we examine whether such a tipping-point can occur in Europe for current flood insurance systems under different trends in future flood risk caused by climate and socio-economic change. This analysis gives insights into regional inequalities concerning the ability to continue to use flood insurance as an instrument to adapt to changing flood risk. For this study, we adapt the "Dynamic Integrated Flood and Insurance" (DIFI) model by integrating new flood risk simulations in the model that enable examining impacts from various scenarios of climate and socio-economic change on flood insurance premiums and consumer demand. Our results show rising unaffordability and declining demand for flood insurance across scenarios towards 2080. Under a high climate change scenario, simulations show the occurrence of a socio-economic tipping-point in several regions, where insurance uptake almost disappears. A tipping-point and related inequalities in the ability to use flood insurance as an adaptation instrument can be mitigated by introducing reforms of flood insurance arrangements. KW - climate change KW - flood risk management KW - insurance KW - socio-economic KW - tipping-point KW - adaptation KW - partial equilibrium modeling Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/su12208734 SN - 2071-1050 VL - 12 IS - 20 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Surminski, Swenja A1 - Thieken, Annegret T1 - Promoting flood risk reduction BT - the role of insurance in Germany and England JF - Earth's Future N2 - Improving society's ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from flooding requires integrated, anticipatory flood risk management (FRM). However, most countries still focus their efforts on responding to flooding events if and when they occur rather than addressing their current and future vulnerability to flooding. Flood insurance is one mechanism that could promote a more ex ante approach to risk by supporting risk reduction activities. This paper uses an adapted version of Easton's System Theory to investigate the role of insurance for FRM in Germany and England. We introduce an anticipatory FRM framework, which allows flood insurance to be considered as part of a broader policy field. We analyze if and how flood insurance can catalyze a change toward a more anticipatory approach to FRM. In particular we consider insurance's role in influencing five key components of anticipatory FRM: risk knowledge, prevention through better planning, property‐level protection measures, structural protection and preparedness (for response). We find that in both countries FRM is still a reactive, event‐driven process, while anticipatory FRM remains underdeveloped. Collaboration between insurers and FRM decision‐makers has already been successful, for example in improving risk knowledge and awareness, while in other areas insurance acts as a disincentive for more risk reduction action. In both countries there is evidence that insurance can play a significant role in encouraging anticipatory FRM, but this remains underutilized. Effective collaboration between insurers and government should not be seen as a cost, but as an investment to secure future insurability through flood resilience. KW - flooding KW - insurance KW - governance KW - risk reduction Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000587 SN - 2328-4277 VL - 5 SP - 979 EP - 1001 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - GEN A1 - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - Korup, Oliver T1 - Residential flood loss estimated from Bayesian multilevel models T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Models for the predictions of monetary losses from floods mainly blend data deemed to represent a single flood type and region. Moreover, these approaches largely ignore indicators of preparedness and how predictors may vary between regions and events, challenging the transferability of flood loss models. We use a flood loss database of 1812 German flood-affected households to explore how Bayesian multilevel models can estimate normalised flood damage stratified by event, region, or flood process type. Multilevel models acknowledge natural groups in the data and allow each group to learn from others. We obtain posterior estimates that differ between flood types, with credibly varying influences of water depth, contamination, duration, implementation of property-level precautionary measures, insurance, and previous flood experience; these influences overlap across most events or regions, however. We infer that the underlying damaging processes of distinct flood types deserve further attention. Each reported flood loss and affected region involved mixed flood types, likely explaining the uncertainty in the coefficients. Our results emphasise the need to consider flood types as an important step towards applying flood loss models elsewhere. We argue that failing to do so may unduly generalise the model and systematically bias loss estimations from empirical data. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1148 KW - damage KW - insurance KW - Germany KW - transferability KW - preparedness KW - recovery Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-517743 SN - 1866-8372 SP - 1599 EP - 1614 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - Korup, Oliver T1 - Residential flood loss estimated from Bayesian multilevel models JF - Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences N2 - Models for the predictions of monetary losses from floods mainly blend data deemed to represent a single flood type and region. Moreover, these approaches largely ignore indicators of preparedness and how predictors may vary between regions and events, challenging the transferability of flood loss models. We use a flood loss database of 1812 German flood-affected households to explore how Bayesian multilevel models can estimate normalised flood damage stratified by event, region, or flood process type. Multilevel models acknowledge natural groups in the data and allow each group to learn from others. We obtain posterior estimates that differ between flood types, with credibly varying influences of water depth, contamination, duration, implementation of property-level precautionary measures, insurance, and previous flood experience; these influences overlap across most events or regions, however. We infer that the underlying damaging processes of distinct flood types deserve further attention. Each reported flood loss and affected region involved mixed flood types, likely explaining the uncertainty in the coefficients. Our results emphasise the need to consider flood types as an important step towards applying flood loss models elsewhere. We argue that failing to do so may unduly generalise the model and systematically bias loss estimations from empirical data. KW - damage KW - insurance KW - Germany KW - transferability KW - preparedness KW - recovery Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1599-2021 SN - 2195-9269 VL - 21 SP - 1599 EP - 1614 PB - European Geophysical Society CY - Katlenburg-Lindau ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hudson, Paul A1 - De Ruig, Lars T. A1 - De Ruiter, Marco C. A1 - Kuik, Onno J. A1 - Botzen, W. J. Wouter A1 - Le Den, X. A1 - Persson, Magnus A1 - Benoist, Anthony A1 - Nielsen, C. N. T1 - An assessment of best practices of extreme weather insurance and directions for a more resilient society T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Extreme weather resilience has been defined as being based on three pillars: resistance (the ability to lower impacts), recovery (the ability to bounce back), and adaptive capacity (the ability to learn and improve). These resilience pillars are important both before and after the occurrence of extreme weather events. Extreme weather insurance can influence these pillars of resilience depending on how particular insurance mechanisms are structured. We explore how the lessons learnt from the current best insurance practices can improve resilience to extreme weather events. We employ an extensive inventory of private property and agricultural crop insurance mechanisms to conduct a multi-criteria analysis of insurance market outcomes. We draw conclusions regarding the patterns in the best practice from six European countries to increase resilience. We suggest that requirements to buy a bundle extreme weather event insurance with general insurance packages are strengthened and supported with structures to financing losses through public-private partnerships. Moreover, support for low income households through income vouchers could be provided. Similarly, for the agricultural sector we propose moving towards comprehensive crop yield insurance linked to general agricultural subsidies. In both cases a nationally representative body can coordinate the various stakeholders into acting in concert. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 757 KW - extreme weather KW - insurance KW - resilience KW - climate change adaptation KW - risk management Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-433510 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 757 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Spekkers, Matthieu A1 - Rözer, Viktor A1 - Thieken, Annegret A1 - ten Veldhuis, Marie-Claire A1 - Kreibich, Heidi T1 - A comparative survey of the impacts of extreme rainfall in two international case studies T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Flooding is assessed as the most important natural hazard in Europe, causing thousands of deaths, affecting millions of people and accounting for large economic losses in the past decade. Little is known about the damage processes associated with extreme rainfall in cities, due to a lack of accurate, comparable and consistent damage data. The objective of this study is to investigate the impacts of extreme rainfall on residential buildings and how affected households coped with these impacts in terms of precautionary and emergency actions. Analyses are based on a unique dataset of damage characteristics and a wide range of potential damage explaining variables at the household level, collected through computer-aided telephone interviews (CATI) and an online survey. Exploratory data analyses based on a total of 859 completed questionnaires in the cities of Munster (Germany) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands) revealed that the uptake of emergency measures is related to characteristics of the hazardous event. In case of high water levels, more efforts are made to reduce damage, while emergency response that aims to prevent damage is less likely to be effective. The difference in magnitude of the events in Munster and Amsterdam, in terms of rainfall intensity and water depth, is probably also the most important cause for the differences between the cities in terms of the suffered financial losses. Factors that significantly contributed to damage in at least one of the case studies are water contamination, the presence of a basement in the building and people's awareness of the upcoming event. Moreover, this study confirms conclusions by previous studies that people's experience with damaging events positively correlates with precautionary behaviour. For improving future damage data acquisition, we recommend the inclusion of cell phones in a CATI survey to avoid biased sampling towards certain age groups. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 640 KW - flood-affected residents KW - mitigation measures KW - private households KW - august 2002 KW - damage KW - Germany KW - preparedness KW - insurance KW - recovery KW - people Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-418432 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 640 SP - 1337 EP - 1355 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Unterberger, Christian A1 - Hudson, Paul A1 - Botzen, W. J. Wouter A1 - Schroeer, Katharina A1 - Steininger, Karl W. T1 - Future public sector flood risk and risk sharing arrangements BT - an assessment for Austria T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Climate change, along with socio-economic development, will increase the economic impacts of floods. While the factors that influence flood risk to private property have been extensively studied, the risk that natural disasters pose to public infrastructure and the resulting implications on public sector budgets, have received less attention. We address this gap by developing a two-staged model framework, which first assesses the flood risk to public infrastructure in Austria. Combining exposure and vulnerability information at the building level with inundation maps, we project an increase in riverine flood damage, which progressively burdens public budgets. Second, the risk estimates are integrated into an insurance model, which analyzes three different compensation arrangements in terms of the monetary burden they place on future governments' budgets and the respective volatility of payments. Formalized insurance compensation arrangements offer incentives for risk reduction measures, which lower the burden on public budgets by reducing the vulnerability of buildings that are exposed to flooding. They also significantly reduce the volatility of payments and thereby improve the predictability of flood damage expenditures. These features indicate that more formalized insurance arrangements are an improvement over the purely public compensation arrangement currently in place in Austria. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 634 KW - climate change KW - adaptation KW - flood risk KW - insurance KW - public sector KW - risk reduction Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-424629 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 634 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bubeck, Philip A1 - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H. A1 - de Moel, Hans A1 - Kreibich, Heidi T1 - Preface BT - Flood-risk analysis and integrated management T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - kein abstract T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 609 KW - public-participation KW - damage KW - losses KW - vulnerability KW - Netherlands KW - adaptation KW - strategies KW - buildings KW - insurance KW - frequency Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-412387 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 609 ER -