Equitable Resilience

Natural disaster losses globally are averaging upward of $250 billion annually. As the climate continues to warm, scientists predict changes in the frequency, duration, timing, and location of floods, storms, wildfires, droughts, and other extreme events, potentially exacerbating trends of rising disaster losses. Marginalized communities will bear the brunt of these impacts, but do not have adequate resources for sufficient investments in adaptation and hazard mitigation. Many households and communities are not prepared for today’s extreme events, let alone tomorrow’s.

The Policy Incubator is examining opportunities to improve community resilience now and in the future. These initiatives include quantifying the financial recovery gap—particularly for low and moderate income households; examining novel insurance models that can help improve the recovery of low income households after disasters; designing polices to secure fair and affordable flood insurance premiums, while not sacrificing other program objectives; and testing new risk reduction financing solutions.

Highlights:

Closing the Disaster Insurance Gap for Low Income Households

This project seeks to design a viable parametric micro-insurance program for low-income families in the United States, coupled to disaster mitigation efforts, and implemented through a public-private partnership.

Digital Dialogue: Improving the Disaster Recovery of Low Income Households

What policy changes need to be made to support effective recovery for low income households? This Dialogue is a collaboration with the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center.

Local Solutions to Flood Insurance Affordability: Portland’s Flood Insurance Savings Program

This issue brief examines how absent federal policy to address flood insurance affordability for lower income families, Portland, Oregon adopted a program that lowered the cost of flood insurance for residents.