The United Nations-backed Insurance Development Forum (IDF) has opened discussions on ways insurers can apply their expertise to improve global disaster risk management.

About 90 public and private sector participants, including senior insurance executives, World Bank and UN staff, met over two days in conjunction with the International Insurance Society’s Global Insurance Forum in Singapore last week.

“We are in unchartered territory – we’ve never done this before,” IDF Chairman Stephen Catlin, Executive Deputy Chairman of XL Catlin, said.

“We are now in the spotlight and we have to deliver meaningful change – that is our intent. There are both altruistic and economic reasons for insurers to engage to speed the availability of insurance to protect people and property, particularly in the developing world.”

The IDF will make insurance risk transfer, public policy and resilience recommendations to its steering committee in September.

The New York-based IDF was set up in April, and is led by a steering group comprising leaders from the insurance industry and public institutions.

“For the UN, the IDF is not really about insurance… it’s about sustainable development,” UN Development Program Senior Political Co-ordinator Quentin Coolen said.

“If development is not risk-informed, it is not sustainable. And who better than the insurance industry to contribute to a better measurement of risk?

“Clearly, the international policymaker community and insurers need each other.”