The Swedish Insurance Sector’s View on Climate Risks - Adaptation Strategies to the consequences of current weather variations and expected climate change

Abstract: In recent years Sweden has been struck by several cases of weather related property damage resulting from the severe flooding in 2000, 2002 and the storm Gudrun at the beginning of 2005. The importance of strategies enabling society to adapt to coming changes in weather patterns has been confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well within the international and national policy arena. It is reasonable to believe that the insurance sector would be among the first within the financial realm to feel the effects of expected climate change. This qualitative study aims to investigate how the Swedish insurance sector relates and deals with the consequences of current weather variations and expected climate change. Research areas of importance concern 1.The role of the insurance sector. 2. Knowledge and other actors and 3. Adaptation strategies, current and future. Comprehensive theories regarding adaptive strategies have been applied to the insurance company’s operations. The empirical material is based on interviews with relevant employees at the four largest insurance companies in Sweden as well with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) and the Swedish Insurance Federation. The overall results show that the insurance sector considers the climate issue to be important to future operations; however, since Sweden has not yet been affected by climate change, they prefer, at this time at least, to monitor developments and gather knowledge. Due to their position on this matter, the insurance sector’s role in the climate debate is, generally speaking, considered to be minor whereas the more important actors are authorities, municipalities and the government. Reinsurance companies are seen as a significant player in the market due to many factors; most note ably that they indirectly have the capacity to affect the entire Swedish insurance sector by raising the costs for reinsurance premiums. However, the climate change issue is of importance yet, of higher relevance is adaptation to present weather variations.