The Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF) Insurance Company and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) recently signed a memorandum of intent (MoI) in Bali, Indonesia, to strengthen disaster impact reporting and risk financing solutions in Southeast Asia.
The partnership aims to connect disaster response systems with financial protection tools, which will enable stronger reporting mechanisms and more consistent, quality-assured disaster impact data across ASEAN member states.
Under the agreement, both parties will explore a regional insurance solution designed to provide pre-arranged financing for rapid humanitarian response and post-disaster recovery.
The MoI was signed during SEADRIF’s inaugural Knowledge Exchange Day, co-hosted by Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance, which brought together more than 70 participants from ASEAN+3 governments, regional bodies, development partners, and insurance stakeholders.
Discussions highlighted Indonesia’s disaster risk financing progress, including its Pooling Fund Bencana, public asset insurance programme, and ongoing work on catastrophe risk modelling and parametric insurance solutions.
Officials from Lao PDR and the Philippines also shared lessons from implementing national and regional disaster risk financing mechanisms in collaboration with SEADRIF.
“Effective disaster risk financing starts with credible data,” said Benedikt Signer, chief executive officer of SEADRIF Insurance Company. “This partnership with the AHA Centre is a step to push further in reimagining how insurance solutions in an ASEAN+3 initiative in partnership with the World Bank ASEAN can directly build on governments’ own data and be integrated with core response systems.”
Lee Yam Ming, executive director of the AHA Centre, underscored the importance of disaster risk financing as a “complement to humanitarian response systems”.
“By enhancing regional cooperation and improving disaster reporting systems, we can support more predictable and timely financing that enables faster assistance to communities affected by disasters across ASEAN,” Lee said.
Earlier this month, SEADRIF joined forces with three other regional parametric insurance risk pools — Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC), African Risk Capacity, and Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility SPC — and development finance institutions and (re)insurance representatives to explore the feasibility of creating a risk finance and reinsurance platform for stronger climate protection among their member states.
