Climate insurance statistics show a wide divide between economic exposure and insured protection. Swiss Re estimated the global natural-catastrophe protection gap at US$424 billion in 2025, while African and Caribbean risk pools demonstrate how index and parametric insurance can deliver funds after droughts, storms, and other shocks. The figures below distinguish global estimates, cumulative program totals, specific agricultural seasons, and individual response payments.
Contents
- Global catastrophe protection gaps
- Crop insurance and agricultural exposure
- Index insurance and microinsurance reach
- African climate-risk pools
- Sovereign payouts and household support
- Parametric and weather-index case studies
Global catastrophe protection gaps
Swiss Re’s natural-catastrophe insurance resilience index measures insured protection relative to exposure. The global index was 27.3% in 2025, compared with 25.3% in 2015. Even with that increase, the estimated protection gap reached US$424 billion in 2025, up from US$395 billion in 2024. These are global estimates for the stated years, not forecasts of a future loss.
Regional resilience remained uneven in the 2025 comparison. Advanced EMEA rose from 37.1% in 2015 to 41.3% in 2025, while Advanced Asia Pacific increased from 22.5% to 29.1% over the same period. In 2025, natural-catastrophe insurance resilience remained around 8–9% across Latin America and emerging EMEA, and was about 5% in emerging Asia. The regional figures indicate that the global average masks much lower levels of insured protection in several emerging markets. Natural catastrophes | Swiss Re
The German comparison in the same Swiss Re source illustrates the difference between perils. Fire and storm insurance covered about 99% of residential buildings in Germany, while flood insurance covered 57% of households. The flood figure had risen from roughly 20% two decades earlier, but it still remained below the coverage level reported for fire and storm. These are source comparisons associated with the 2025 analysis, rather than a universal household-insurance rate.
| Measure | Earlier period | Later period | Geography or scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global natural-catastrophe resilience | 25.3% (2015) | 27.3% (2025) | Global |
| Advanced EMEA resilience | 37.1% (2015) | 41.3% (2025) | Advanced EMEA |
| Advanced Asia Pacific resilience | 22.5% (2015) | 29.1% (2025) | Advanced Asia Pacific |
| Natural-catastrophe protection gap | US$395bn (2024) | US$424bn (2025) | Global |
Crop insurance and agricultural exposure
Agriculture has its own protection challenge. Swiss Re’s global Crop Insurance Resilience Index stood at 45% in 2024. The global crop-insurance protection gap was close to US$76 billion that year, compared with US$73 billion in 2023. Around 55% of global insurable crop value remained unprotected in 2024. The index, gap, and unprotected share describe different dimensions of the same issue: the amount of crop value at risk is not matched by equivalent insurance protection.
China and India show why national exposure and insurance resilience need to be read together. China’s crop-insurance protection gap had fallen by about 50% over the decade covered by Swiss Re’s 2024 analysis. The cited resilience analysis also recorded a 58% reduction in cropland affected by floods and droughts since 2014. Those changes are reported for the periods specified by the source and should not be interpreted as a standalone measure of all climate-related agricultural risk.
In the cited 2024 source comparison, two-thirds of India’s total cropland was exposed to drought, while 55% of cropland was irrigated. Exposure to drought and access to irrigation are not interchangeable measures: irrigation can affect agricultural resilience, but the figures do not state that it eliminates drought losses or insurance needs. Global crop insurance | Swiss Re
Index insurance and microinsurance reach
Index insurance pays when a measurable trigger, such as rainfall or an indexed hazard, reaches a defined level. The World Bank’s Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) regional partners had facilitated more than 13 million index-insurance contracts by the latest reported cumulative total. Those contracts covered more than 65 million beneficiaries and represented approximately US$2 billion in sums insured. GIIF-linked programs also reached more than 1 million people with information and access to index insurance. These are cumulative program totals, not annual market totals.
The access problem is particularly visible in agriculture. The World Bank described agricultural risk-management penetration in Africa as about 1% in its 2022 Kenya feature. Kenya’s Bima Pima weather-insurance product required an initial premium of KES50, about US$0.50, and a KES50 premium had a potential payout of KES500, equal to 10% of the insured amount described in that feature.
The same 2022 account reported that 89% of farmers in the cited Kenya program had never accessed insurance services before. Acre Africa’s Bima Pima program operated across 15 Kenyan counties and served more than 70,000 farmers, up from 10,000. Kenyan farmers paid KES5 million in premiums across the four seasons between 2020 and 2021 in the cited program. Acre Africa separately reported US$50,000 in premiums and US$20,000 paid as compensation over the last four seasons cited in the 2022 feature. The currencies, periods, and reporting descriptions are retained because they are not presented as one directly comparable accounting series. Disruptive Innovations Boost Uptake of Agriculture Insurance Solutions in Kenya
African climate-risk pools
The African Risk Capacity (ARC) model combines sovereign and other risk-pool arrangements so participating countries can obtain funds after defined climate shocks. ARC’s historical risk pools had placed US$1.74 billion in total coverage by the latest pool summary. They had covered 656.2 million people cumulatively across pools and disbursed US$206.1 million in payouts. Those cumulative totals should not be read as coverage or beneficiaries in one year.
Recent agricultural-season figures show how pool size and payouts vary. ARC Risk Pool XI for the 2024/25 agricultural season placed US$160.485 million in coverage, paid out US$17.525 million, and listed 116,767,114 insured people. ARC Risk Pool X for the 2023/24 agricultural season placed US$264.4 million in coverage and paid out US$69.4 million.
| ARC pool or measure | Coverage | Payout | People or period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Historical pools | US$1.74bn | US$206.1m | 656.2m people cumulatively |
| Risk Pool XI | US$160.485m | US$17.525m | 2024/25 agricultural season; 116,767,114 insured people |
| Risk Pool X | US$264.4m | US$69.4m | 2023/24 agricultural season |
The coverage and payout values are not premiums, and the insured-person figure for Pool XI is not equivalent to the historical cumulative beneficiary figure. Risk Pools | African Risk Capacity Group
Sovereign payouts and household support
Payout data becomes more concrete when linked to a response plan. Malawi received a US$3,376,783 ARC drought-insurance payout for the 2024/25 agricultural season in July 2025. The amount comprised US$3,065,746 from the traditional sovereign policy and US$311,037 from the anticipatory policy. Malawi planned to use the traditional-policy payout to support just over 311,000 beneficiaries across 69,179 households. The anticipatory payout was designated to support 3,255 households with drought-tolerant crops and winter-cropping inputs. Government of Malawi receives an insurance payout from ARC Group following the 2024 drought
Somalia received a US$1,455,710 ARC drought-insurance payout for the 2024/25 agricultural season in March 2025. ARC Replica partner Start Network received US$727,855 for the same drought response. Somalia’s government payout was allocated to emergency food assistance for 35,000 households, while Start Network’s payout was to be distributed as cash transfers to 10,500 households. Official Press Release: The ARC Group makes climate insurance payouts to Somalia and the Start Network
For Zambia’s 2023/24 drought response, WFP received a US$3,326,320 ARC Replica payout in 2025. Zambia planned emergency cash transfers for 92,515 households in 14 affected districts. Lesotho received a US$2,767,958 ARC drought-insurance payout for the 2024/25 agricultural season in August 2025. The payment was expected to reach 30,709 farming and vulnerable households across all 10 districts, with planned assistance of Maluti 1,500, equivalent to US$81 per household. ARC climate-insurance payouts to Zambia and WFP and Lesotho Receives US$2.8 Million Payout from ARC
Parametric and weather-index case studies
CCRIF had provided 54 payouts to 16 members totaling approximately US$245 million since 2007, benefiting more than 3.5 million people in the Caribbean and Central America. During the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, CCRIF made six payouts totaling US$21.9 million. Its largest payout cited by the World Bank was nearly US$40 million to Haiti after the August 2021 magnitude-7.2 earthquake. CCRIF reported more than US$500 million in joint reserves and claims-paying capacity backed by international reinsurance in its 2022 source update. Risk insurance builds climate and disaster resilience in Central America and the Caribbean
More recent CCRIF figures report US$84.5 million paid to seven members after Hurricane Beryl in 2024. CCRIF made three payouts totaling US$4.9 million after Tropical Storm Philippe and Tropical Cyclone Tammy in 2023. These events show why payout totals need an event date and hazard name: annual figures can differ sharply depending on the severity and geographic reach of storms. CCRIF SPC | Annual Report 2024–2025
An earlier Malawi weather-index pilot shows how a trigger can be designed for a specific crop. In 2005, the pilot insured 892 groundnut farmers for total premiums of US$36,600. By 2008, after expansion to cash crops, 2,600 Malawi farmers were buying crop policies worth US$2.5 million. The groundnut policy used rainfall triggers of 60 mm, 160 mm, and 100 mm across its three crop-growth stages. These figures describe a 2005 pilot design and its 2008 expansion; they are historical case-study results, not current Malawi market totals. Weather Index-based Crop Insurance in Malawi