What is the purpose of the PIISA project?
The PIISA project is a Horizon Europe mission. Currently, we have not adapted enough to climate change to control the damages. In other words, the gap between climate adaptation and climate risks is too big. The aim of this project is to use new insurance concepts to help closing this gap.
How is the PIISA project set up?
A total of 12 partners from 8 countries are working in the project. CAS develops new insurance concepts in the urban sector. Other partners in the project focus on the agricultural or forestry sectors. Literature and model studies are carried out for this purpose. In addition, the insurance concepts are tested and elaborated in pilots. This is done first in a specific European region. It will then be examined whether this concept can also be applied in the other European regions.
What is our role in the project?
Our role in the project is to examine what non-life insurers in Europe can do to increase the success of nature-based adaptation solutions in the urban sector. Because even though it is clear that these solutions offer many benefits, they are not yet standard practice in European cities. This is because the threshold for residents and businesses to use these solutions is often too high, for example because they think that construction or maintenance is too expensive. And insurers themselves are reluctant to invest in large-scale measures because they fear losing their competitive position. However, there are already insurers in Europe looking for ways to increase their customers’ choice of nature-based adaptation solutions.
What is our approach?
Together with the Vrije Universiteit’s Institute for Environmental Studies (VU-IVM), we are investigating what non-life insurers can do in their own organisation and towards their customers to increase the success of nature-based adaptation measures. A good example was the successful campaign by which Interpolis encourages its customers to green their roofs. We are also investigating which factors stimulate customers to install a green roof and which factors hinder them from doing so. CAS supervises this process and VU-IVM develops choice experiments for this purpose. These should provide insight into the considerations people make whether or not to install a green roof. Finally, we investigate how to make nature-based adaptation measures even more successful and how insurers in the Netherlands and Europe can take action. We will incorporate the results of the project into a research report and practical tools for insurers.
What did we do?
In the first year of the PIISA project, we interviewed eight Dutch non-life insurers. The goal was to understand what barriers and opportunities exist to integrate nature-based adaptation measures in insurance products. In the following year, we validated our findings with insurers from the Boreal and Mediterranean regions. Based on these conversations, we wrote a short report. In 2024, Lisette and Simone were interviewed by our Finnish partner, Tyrsky Consulting, about this work. You can download the report or read the interview below to learn more.
Dowload the report
Read the interview
We also launched a website for insurers. It raises awareness of climate-related risks and explains how nature-based solutions can help reduce them. The site provides clear information on climate impacts and shared practical examples of adaptation measures. This way, the website helps insurers address the barriers we identified and explore how nature-based solutions can be included in their products.
Visit the website for insurers
More information
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