Insurance industry can play role in infrastructure resilience

To better manage risks and recover quickly, city infrastructure owners and operators must move beyond asset-by-asset risk management to build resilience within and between infrastructure systems, says a Lloyd’s of London report issued Monday.

The “Future Cities: Building Infrastructure Resilience” report, which was issued in conjunction with London-based engineering consulting group Arup Group Ltd., discusses four critical infrastructure systems — energy, water supply, information communications technology and transport — through three case studies.

“These demonstrate how infrastructure has been impacted by catastrophic events in the past, how stakeholders responded at the time, and indicates what actions they could take in the future to effectively address risk and enhance resilience,” says the report.

The three pathways that can improve infrastructure performance are preventing failure, expediting recovery and transforming performance, says the report.

“Building resilience for all stakeholders means finding new ways to break down silos within and between government, the private sector and communities,” says the report.

“This will help promote the benefits of resilience and incentivize resilience-building structures,” according to the report.

The insurance industry can play a key role in supporting this report’s approach by working in partnership with other stakeholders to improve city infrastructure in areas including data use and collection, the use of metrics, models and tools development, and in designing resilient assets, the report says.