Innovative insurance products TABLE 1 Parametric insurance International organizationsUNICEF’s Today and Tomorrow Initiative combines pre-arranged payouts for climate events with health service delivery planning. As of 2024, the policy provided disaster protection for up to 13.5 million people across eight high-risk countries, with $4 million in payouts supporting 327,266 beneficiaries. These funds were used to sustain essential health services during climate shocks through mobile health team deployments, delivery of medical supplies and public health messaging in flood- and cyclone-affected areas. Payouts were disbursed within 36–72 hours, demonstrating the initiative’s ability to deliver rapid, targeted disaster response.86 In 2023, the Rockefeller Foundation, in collaboration with the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and Blue Marble, piloted an Extreme Heat Income Insurance initiative in India. This programme was designed to safeguard the health and financial stability of women in the informal sector who are disproportionately affected by rising temperatures. When extreme heat conditions are met, a parametric microinsurance payout is automatically triggered, providing compensation for lost wages due to unsafe working environments. This innovative effort aims to prevent these vulnerable workers from having to choose between their health and their family’s economic security, with the goal of scaling this critical support to 2.5 million SEWA members and beyond.87 In Mexico, the Insurance Development Forum, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Mexican government agencies partnered on a project targeting smallholder maize producers. Their pilot covered around 10,000 farmers in municipalities highly vulnerable to drought and excessive rainfall, achieving significant success: 95% of recipients expressed satisfaction with the insurance and direct payments effectively strengthened community resilience against climate shocks.88,89 IndustryNespresso, through collaboration with Blue Marble Microinsurance, developed a parametric insurance scheme for coffee farmers in Colombia, providing rapid financial support when excessive rainfall or drought disrupts coffee production. The Café Seguro programme delivered $3 million in payouts for 6,475 Colombian smallholder coffee farmers.90,91 Allianz has similarly developed a parametric scheme to insure Colombian coffee growers, protecting $1.5 million of farmers’ investments across 45 municipalities in Colombia.92 Captive insuranceA more traditional model being reimagined for a new era is captive insurance. Captive insurance companies – entities owned by the parent organization they insure – have long been used to cover property, liability and workers’ compensation risks, but captives are increasingly being repurposed to address complex climate risks and cover health benefits for workers.93 Captives enable companies to trigger immediate support or income replacement for outdoor and climate-vulnerable workers during extreme heat or other severe weather conditions. These tailored policies ensure direct access to healthcare and financial stability for agricultural labourers, construction workers and field staff, who are often the first affected by climate events. Additionally, captives consolidate data related to climate risks, which enhances organizations’ capacity to monitor exposure, plan mitigation strategies and ensure supply-chain resilience.94,95 Pooled insuranceThe Africa Risk Capacity (ARC) facilitates a pooled insurance model for African nations to address climate disasters. Member countries collectively fund an insurance pool that provides payouts to governments for rapid disaster response. Pooled financing helps countries manage climate shocks without waiting for slow- moving aid flows. This collective approach allows the ARC to manage climate risk with fewer funds than would be needed if each country independently prepared for its own worst-case scenarios; it is unlikely that all regions will experience severe events simultaneously.96,97 If we want to maintain public health in the long term for everybody, then insurance is one of those things we have to get right. Residential insurance is going to be a determinant of public health in the future. Kali Mercier, Deputy Director and WSP Fellow, the Helen Clark Foundation Research produced by my colleagues evaluated the effect of cash transfers made to households forecast to experience extreme flooding in Bangladesh in 2022. Hydrological modelling can predict flooding to an area five days ahead of a flood peak, allowing cash to reach those who will be affected, before they actually are. This ‘anticipatory’ transfer improved welfare for those who received it. Our work is showing that people spend the money they receive judiciously – much of this spending goes towards stockpiling medicines and food, with positive consequences for health and food security outcomes. Rocco Zizzamia, Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Oxford Workforce Health Across the Value Chain: Organizational Insights to Mitigate Risk and Create Sustainable Growth 21

Workforce Health Across the Value Chain 2025