Creating Force Multipliers
for Residential Mitigation
Public-private risk gap.
The Challenge
States and local governments are financially stretched. The ability to find funding to better prepare for natural catastrophes is limited, yet the impact of not doing more now to mitigate the financial and personal impact of annually recurring natural catastrophes, makes no sense either. Insurers are seeking ways to address the public-private risk gap, so there is a convergence of need and opportunity. We can each take tangible steps now, see how.
FEMA alone is not the solution.
FEMA’s new BRIC program (Building Resilient Communities and Infrastructure) offers potentially significant pre-disaster mitigation funds for infrastructure and community mitigation projects, but does much less to address residential catastrophe mitigation, as is discussed in our report, “Force Multipliers for Mitigation: Coming Together to Do More.”
Technology exists to address catastrophe risk effects of climate change.
RT Mitigation is highlighting the innovative ideas that tangibly address the impact of climate change. The insurance industry is uniquely well-positioned to apply its strength in catastrophe risk management to make a material difference in the nation’s ability to better prepare today for the effects of climate change.
Appealing to enlightened economic self-interest can provide a boost to mitigation.
The ability to expand the reach of mitigation will increasingly benefit by considering innovative solutions that unleash the power of the free market economy — to be able to access much deeper resources expanding our ability as a society to do more pre disaster mitigation. An example of one area in which we can better prepare for the effects of climate change is to systematically broaden approved residential catastrophe mitigation measures.
Taking no action will cost more.
The alternative to taking constructive action now, can be easily visualized in the form of more ubiquitous “Blue Tarp Towns” following hurricanes and tornadoes. The need for greater focus on residential mitigation now, is to avoid a pyrrhic victory, where FEMA’s investment in infrastructure and community mitigation is potentially overshadowed by those same communities suffering devastating financial, environmental and personal loss due to the large number of homes losing their roofs, thereby creating large debris removal issues, adversely impacting the local school, police, and health budgets.
There are good examples of how residential mitigation programs in a few states — Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina — already make it easier for homeowners to fortify their homes against hurricanes and tornadoes.