Willis Towers Watson offers ecosystem coverage

Mangrove ecosystem

Willis Towers Watson P.L.C. has developed an insurance facility to finance and support the resilience of ecosystems.

The Global Ecosystem Resilience Facility will initially focus on the protection of ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses in the Caribbean to support resilience of fishing communities at threat from hurricanes and coral decline, the brokerage said Friday in a statement.

“The (insurance facility) acknowledges that there are two key aspects driving changes in the risk environment: human activity and natural processes,” Rowan Douglas, London-based CEO of Willis Towers Watson’s capital, science and policy practice, said in the statement. “The facility addresses both aspects: Communities build resilience through sustainable practices under their control, and disaster risk finance protects against events outside of their control.”

The financing element of the facility focuses on risk transfer and project finance, with the risk transfer element looking specifically at risk pooling and the project finance element examining the suitability and feasibility of financial instruments including catastrophe bonds, resilience bonds, grants and loans, according to the statement.

“The Global Ecosystem Resilience Facility allows for the financing of increased resilience at a large scale,” he said in the statement.