The Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF) Insurance Co. and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) have signed a cooperation agreement on disaster data, impact reporting, and risk financing across ASEAN, at a time when uninsured catastrophe losses in Asia remain elevated.
The two organisations formalised a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) in Bali on March 9, 2026, during a SEADRIF-organised knowledge exchange event co-hosted by Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance. More than 70 representatives from ASEAN+3 governments, regional bodies, development institutions, and insurance and reinsurance firms attended, focusing on disaster risk financing (DRF) and climate-related risk in Southeast Asia.
Discussions covered Indonesia’s DRF framework, including the Pooling Fund Bencana disaster fund, its public asset insurance arrangements, and the use of catastrophe risk modelling and parametric structures. Officials from Lao PDR and the Philippines shared country experience in implementing local and regional DRF schemes in collaboration with SEADRIF. SEADRIF also gave an overview of its current programmes and priority areas. Under the MoI, SEADRIF and the AHA Centre plan to link disaster response mechanisms more directly with financial protection tools. The parties intend to develop more consistent disaster impact reporting and to examine a potential regional insurance mechanism that would secure pre-arranged funding for humanitarian response and early recovery following natural disasters in ASEAN member states.
The cooperation framework sets out several technical workstreams for further development. These include regular dialogue on disaster risk financing and its interaction with operational response under the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER). The partners also plan to use historical disaster data in the design of insurance products and to organise joint workshops and simulation exercises to test the alignment of operational procedures with financial trigger mechanisms. “Effective disaster risk financing starts with credible data. This partnership with the AHA Centre is a step to push further in reimagining how insurance solutions in ASEAN can directly build on governments’ own data and be integrated with core response systems,” said Benedikt Signer (pictured left), chief executive officer of SEADRIF Insurance Co.
AHA Centre executive director Lee Yam Ming (pictured right) said the initiative is meant to sit alongside existing humanitarian tools. “We believe in 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,” he said. Both institutions intend to assess feasibility, refine technical options, and explore potential joint instruments within their respective mandates, setting out a multi-year work programme on regional DRF.
The MoI is being developed against a regional backdrop of large uninsured catastrophe losses. Recent industry analysis indicates that Asia’s insurance protection gap for natural disasters is about 82.8%, meaning most economic losses from climate-related events are retained by households, businesses, and governments. Research from MAPFRE Economics, presented at COP30, notes that the frequency and severity of extreme weather events have increased, with insured losses from such events rising by an estimated 5% to 7% per year since 1992, based on Swiss Re Institute data.
The report also points to the growing contribution of so-called secondary perils, such as floods, wildfires, and droughts. These events occur more frequently than large headline catastrophes and now account for more than half of global disaster-related losses, creating additional demands on public infrastructure and communities. In 2024, global economic losses from natural catastrophes were estimated at more than US$300 billion for the ninth consecutive year, with around US$145 billion covered by insurance. Analysts expect this pattern to continue if climate-related hazards intensify and insurance penetration does not keep pace.
The SEADRIF-AHA Centre cooperation touches on issues of data quality, the structuring of contingent financing for governments, and the role of regional platforms in pooling risk. If the work on disaster impact reporting and financial triggers under AADMER results in operational tools, it could support wider use of parametric solutions, risk pools, and other pre-arranged instruments that provide predictable post-event liquidity for ASEAN governments. Market participants are likely to follow how the initiative is implemented, particularly its implications for sovereign and sub-sovereign catastrophe financing strategies and for efforts to address the protection gap in Southeast Asia.
