Blair Turnbull - Insurance and climate change

<p>Fresh from meeting with international reinsurers, Tower CEO Blair Turnbull says they are "questioning whether they want to be down under."</p><p>Turnbull spoke to interest.co.nz for the latest episode of our <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/node/116346" target="_blank"><i><strong>Of Interest Podcast </strong></i></a>about insurance and climate change.</p><p>Reinsurers are highlighting they've taken losses for several years in a row, Turnbull said.</p><p>"And they are looking very closely, as you would expect, about where they want to have insurance for insurers. And especially more recently with the floods in Australia, which are record $4 [billion] to $5 billion events, they are questioning whether they want to be down under. And that's a concern for us because we rely on that capacity. In our case we have category cover up to just below $1 billion, and we need that cover."</p><p>Reinsurance is often described as insurance for insurance companies like Tower, allowing them to transfer some of the financial risk they assume when issuing insurance policies to a reinsurer.</p><p>Turnbull said Tower's highlighting to reinsurers that New Zealand is not Australia. Although we too have floods, they're typically alluvial and eluvial, and not on the scale of Australia's inland river flooding where there are huge catchment areas.</p><p>"So what we're saying to reinsurers is 'please don't join us together and say you're the same. We're quite different and the nature of those storm events are quite different.' I think also in the case of Tower what reinsurers do like is things like risk-based pricing because we are working with customers and communities to really understand it, and to help mitigate it, and to also price appropriately for it."</p><p>Turnbull also spoke about the Government's <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/sites/default/files/2022-07/Draft-national-adaptation-plan.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>draft national adaptation plan</strong></a>, which is currently open for <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz