Insurers have an increasingly important role in improving international disaster resilience as weather-related losses rise, according to KPMG.

Global Development Initiative Senior Manager Serena Brown says governments and international organisations are looking to the industry as a provider of long-term capital to fund infrastructure, and as a source of data and risk management expertise.

“Insurers have a huge influence, whether as providers of macro, meso and micro risk transfer solutions or by accurately pricing risk, which guides business and governments to make appropriate investments decisions.”

In 2012 the UN released sustainable insurance principles, for the industry to include environmental, social and governance issues in its decision-making and work with partners to develop solutions.

About 160 countries will convene in Japan next year to agree on a successor to the Hyogo Framework for Action on building nations’ resilience, which will include issues such as disaster risk financing and insurance.

Ms Brown says remote sensing, data analytics and cloud computing allow for advanced risk modelling, weather forecasting and damage assessment, while mobile phones and mobile money are extending microinsurance to remote communities.

“We must accelerate thinking about how we make business investment more resilient and how we can work together, including insurers, the wider private sector, governments and civil society, since none of us can solve the challenge individually.”

Munich Re estimates global weather-related losses have increased four-fold from an average $US50 billion ($53 billion) a year in the 1980s to nearly $US200 billion ($213 billion) a year over the past decade.

Low and middle-income countries account for 85% of deaths from natural disasters, the reinsurer estimates.