The Global Risks Alliance (GRA)
Insurance is the financial discipline of pricing, pooling and transferring risk. This page, part of Insurance Nexus at The Global Risks Alliance (GRA), sets out how the sector works as a system: who carries risk, how capital supports it, how regulation shapes it and where systemic questions arise. It treats insurance operations as a subject of research, not execution; GRA performs no insurance activity of its own.
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The Insurance Nexus sector overview covers insurance-sector risk governance, underwriting-relevant knowledge and risk protection gaps without underwriting. It sets out who is in scope, from insurance risk professionals as well as brokers and insurers, how risk reaches the sector and how it travels onward, analysed with exposure analysis, risk transfer concepts and protection gap studies. GRA builds shared industry understanding and does not advise, rate or assess individual firms.
Fig.How GCRI, GRF and GRA share one field while the authorities decide. Design, not a record.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
An insurer collects premiums from many policyholders, invests them and pays claims as losses occur. Its solvency depends on pricing risk adequately, holding enough capital for bad years, and matching investments to the timing of its liabilities. Reinsurers take on part of insurers' risk, particularly from catastrophes, and capital markets increasingly share it through instruments such as catastrophe bonds. Brokers and agents connect buyers with carriers; actuaries estimate liabilities and price products.
Regulators supervise insurers to protect policyholders, generally through risk-based capital requirements, governance standards and conduct rules. International standards are developed through the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. Accounting standards shape how liabilities and profits are reported.
| Regime | Capital basis | Climate expectations |
|---|---|---|
| Solvency II (EU), with 2025 review applying from January 2027 | One-year 1-in-200 value at risk on economic balance sheet | Climate scenarios in the ORSA where material |
| Insurance Capital Standard (IAIGs) | Group prescribed capital requirement adopted in 2024 | Through ICPs and the 2025 climate application paper |
| US risk-based capital (NAIC) | Factor-based RBC with a catastrophe risk charge | NAIC climate risk disclosure survey aligned with TCFD |
| Takaful regimes | IFSB standards adapted locally | Varies by jurisdiction |
Events that strike many policyholders at once, such as catastrophes, pandemics and cyber incidents. See property and casualty.
Whether rising or uncertain risks can still be priced and covered. See climate and nature risk.
Losses that fall outside insurance, onto households, firms and governments. See insurance protection gaps.
How models and AI shape pricing, and their limits. See underwriting and pricing risk and insurtech and AI.
How roles, concentration and capital flows affect resilience. See insurance market structure.
GRA studies the sector at aggregate level. It does not assess individual firms, recommend products or counterparties, or advise on any transaction. How risk moves into and out of the sector is set out on financial-system transmission. Hazard science comes from Climate and Hazards at The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), and wider stability questions are examined by Financial Stability.
GRA does not underwrite, sell, solicit, negotiate, place or broker insurance, and it does not rate, advise on or arrange transactions. Readiness work is not approval.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Transmission channel | The route by which a shock reaches financial institutions' balance sheets. |
| Insurance risk | The risk that claims and related expenses differ from what was assumed when policies were priced and reserved, through frequency, severity, timing or accumulation. |
| Protection gap | The share of economic loss from an event or risk that is not covered by insurance and falls on households, firms or public budgets. |
| Systemic risk | The risk of disruption to financial services caused by impairment of all or parts of the financial system, with serious consequences for the real economy, as the IMF, FSB and BIS define it. |
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.