Informa Insurance News 24
GLOBAL PROTECTION GAP HITS RECORD SIZE
The global protection gap between the insured and uninsured for health, mortality and natural catastrophe risks reached a new high of around $1.4trn in 2020, Swiss Re warned. The rise to its present level from $1.3trn in 2019 came amid the pandemic crisis, with health risks contributing more than half of this year's total gap at $747bn, or 54%, according to Swiss Re’s latest sigma report. The global natural disaster protection gap was more than $230bn in 2020 with global resilience against natural catastrophes not improving over the past 10 years. This is mainly because insurance penetration in high-growth emerging economies has remained low, alongside higher take-up rates in slow-growth advanced markets, Swiss Re said. The reinsurer said its SRI Global Composite Insurance Resilience Index (I-RI), which aggregates the three resilience sub-indices, slipped to 54.1% from a revised 54.7% in the previous year (and down from 55.8% at the time of the global financial crisis of 2008-09).