Climate risk has emerged as a major challenge for the insurance industry. Typhoon "White Dolphin" made landfall with fierce winds and heavy rain, sending insurers once again to the front lines of claims processing. According to news reports, as of 4 p.m. on August 10, CPIC Property Insurance had received 12,547 large disaster claims related to the typhoon, with 10 branches in Shanghai, Zhejiang, and other areas completing initial payouts after the disaster, covering vehicle, property, and agricultural insurance lines. Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance received over 14,000 customer reports related to "White Dolphin," with estimated claims exceeding RMB 400 million. Data from other insurers is still being compiled. In fact, climate risk has become a critical issue for the insurance industry. Recent data from the China Insurance Association shows that since May, the industry has estimated losses of RMB 11.05 billion from natural disasters across more than 20 provinces, with RMB 5.53 billion already paid out.
Several industry insiders note that the insurance sector is an indispensable force in the climate risk governance system. However, the industry should not focus solely on compensating for property losses. The urgency of extreme weather's impact on health is also rising, and open collaboration has become a key path for advancing climate risk management.
Insurance Sector Has Become a Key Force in Climate Risk Governance
Currently, extreme weather events are frequent and severe, with the complexity and seriousness of climate risk continuing to escalate. A recent report on natural disaster losses for the first half of 2026 from Munich Re shows that global natural disasters caused an estimated loss of nearly $112 billion in the first six months of this year. This is slightly below the inflation-adjusted average of $113 billion for the first half of the past decade. "The slight decline in first-half natural disaster losses from the highs of recent years is somewhat reassuring. However, the continued growth of climate change and risk exposure remains, and the risk of larger losses in the future is still rising," said Thomas Blunck, a member of the Munich Re Board of Management.
Against this backdrop, the insurance industry is gradually becoming an important force in the climate risk governance system. "In adapting to climate change, the insurance industry, as a stabilizer for society and a shock absorber for the economy, is playing an increasingly important role in catastrophe claims, climate risk research, and building a climate risk reduction service system," said Su Shaojun, Secretary of the Board of CPIC, at a recent company seminar on climate, health, and insurance sustainability.
For example, during the "White Dolphin" landfall, many insurers swiftly initiated claims work, with processing speeds accelerating. According to reports, on the morning of August 9, both Ping An Insurance Shanghai Branch and CPIC Property Insurance Shanghai Branch completed their first related auto insurance claims, covering losses from vehicles damaged by toppled trees. Both companies used a fully paperless online process, completing everything from survey and assessment to settlement and payment in about three minutes. Data from the China Insurance Association shows that since May, for natural disasters like rainstorms, floods, typhoons, and earthquakes in 20 provinces, the insurance industry has received a total of 533,000 reports, with estimated losses of RMB 11.05 billion, and RMB 5.53 billion already paid out. For the full year of 2025, the industry paid out RMB 34.672 billion for major natural disasters.
Looking at recent measures to address climate change, the insurance industry is shifting from a traditional, passive role in claims compensation to an active, preventive risk manager, building a multi-layered, three-dimensional disaster prevention network. For instance, before the "White Dolphin" typhoon made landfall, Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance Shanghai Branch, using its "Eagle Eye DRS" system, dynamically tracked the typhoon's path and impact zone, precisely pinpointing key prevention targets. It combined online alerts with on-site inspections of key enterprises to reduce risk before the typhoon arrived. CPIC Property Insurance Shanghai Branch relied on its grid-based risk control system to comprehensively survey and list high-risk points across the city, such as flood-prone parking garages, old residential areas, and street-front shops. It deployed frontline surveyors to key road sections to check for flooded vehicles and coordinated with street offices to strengthen home insurance disaster preparedness, reducing losses at the source. PICC Property and Casualty Company prepared preservation sites, tow vehicles, flood barriers, and other emergency supplies in advance in Wenzhou, Ningbo, and other locations to ensure sufficient emergency response capability.
"In our previous responses to extreme weather, our risk reduction measures were effective, actually lowering customer losses and our claim rates," a company insider told reporters.
Urgency of Climate Change's Impact on Health Rises
"In the past, when studying challenges posed by climate change, we focused more on material losses and casualties from extreme weather events. But invisible killers like heatwaves and air pollution are affecting people's health and lives through continuous accumulation," Su Shaojun said. Record-breaking heatwaves dominated the weather patterns in North America and Europe in the first half of this year. For example, Western Europe experienced its hottest June on record. The Munich Re report noted that during the June heatwave in the U.S., the combination of temperature and humidity reached levels almost impossible without climate change.
In China, a National Climate Center official stated in May that the national average temperature from April 1 to May 7 was 13.3掳C, 1.1掳C higher than the long-term average for the same period, the fifth highest since 1961. Professor Kan Haidong from the School of Public Health at Fudan University said at the seminar that climate change has become the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century. Research shows that climate events like non-optimal temperatures, extreme rainfall, floods, and typhoons significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, respiratory illnesses, mental health problems, and adverse birth outcomes. In China, approximately 590,000 people die each year due to non-optimal temperatures, accounting for 31% of the global total.
Facing the impacts of climate change, the insurance protection gap remains very large. The Munich Re report data shows that of the nearly $112 billion in global natural disaster losses in the first half of this year, only $44 billion was covered by insurance, leaving a protection gap as high as 60%. The concentration of disasters further amplifies the volatility of this protection gap. Moody's stated in a report that as the frequency of extreme disasters increases, insurers face greater pressure in risk assessment and pricing. The affordability and availability of insurance in high-risk areas may decline, widening the protection gap. Regarding the health impacts of climate change, Su Shaojun noted that the long-term, complex, and uncertain nature of climate risk leaves some groups, especially the elderly, those with chronic diseases, and outdoor workers, facing a protection gap. Their accumulated long-term health risks are still difficult to cover adequately with traditional insurance products. Insurers need to strengthen their risk research foundation, improve dynamic assessments of vulnerability and adaptive capacity for climate-related health risks, and enhance the precision and accessibility of insurance protection.
Cross-Sector Collaboration is the Key Path
"It has been 10 years since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. Global carbon emission growth has slowed somewhat, but total emissions and temperatures have not significantly decreased. In this context, the urgency of global adaptation to climate change is more pronounced," Su Shaojun said, adding that open collaboration has become a key path for advancing climate risk governance. He believes that climate risk is cross-regional, cross-industry, and cross-cyclical, making it difficult for a single entity to address effectively. In the future, cooperation between government departments, financial institutions, research institutes, meteorological agencies, and medical institutions should be strengthened. A regular, multi-level cooperation system should be established to advance data sharing, standard co-construction, technology win-win, and application co-promotion, forming a joint force to address climate risk.
This aligns with national policy deployment. The "National Climate Change Health Adaptation Action Plan (2024-2030)" proposes establishing an adaptation linkage mechanism led by early warnings for climate change health impacts, promoting multi-level, diversified health adaptation policies and collaborative actions to enhance climate change adaptation and risk prevention capabilities. The "National '15th Five-Year Plan' for Addressing Climate Change" also proposes deeply promoting synergistic pollution reduction and carbon reduction, formulating technical guidelines for synergistic pollution reduction and carbon reduction in key industries and ecological and environmental infrastructure, and stimulating participation from various entities through carbon trading, ecological compensation, and green finance.
Many regions have already begun exploring cross-sector collaboration mechanisms. For example, in Shanghai, last August, the Fengxian District Center for Disease Control and Prevention signed a formal cooperation agreement on meteorological and health research with the Shanghai Climate Center and the Fengxian District Meteorological Bureau. The three parties will focus on four dimensions 鈥?research innovation, data fusion, protection of key populations, and industrial collaboration 鈥?to build a comprehensive health meteorological service system covering the entire district. Industry insiders believe that climate risk's long-term, complex, and uncertain characteristics place high demands on insurers' risk management capabilities. As a key hub connecting climate risk and public health protection, the insurance industry urgently needs to embed itself more deeply into the climate collaboration system. In the future, competition in the climate risk protection sector will not only be about claims-paying ability, but also about the capacity to integrate data resources from meteorology, healthcare, scientific research, and other fields.