85 seconds to midnight: Why PH insurance industry can no longer afford to be a bystander

WHEN the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight on Jan. 27, 2026 — the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe — it was not merely updating a symbol. It was issuing an indictment.

An indictment of failed leadership, collapsing cooperation, unmanaged technological risk and a global system increasingly unable to absorb shocks.

For many, this warning will again feel abstract — another grim headline in an already anxious world.

For the Philippine insurance industry, it should feel uncomfortably concrete.

Because when the world edges closer to systemic failure, insurance is no longer a peripheral financial service. It becomes a core pillar of national resilience — or a glaring point of weakness if it fails to evolve.

When global risk accelerates, local exposure multiplies

The Doomsday Clock reflects converging threats: nuclear escalation, climate breakdown, biological risk, and the reckless deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) amid eroding trust and disinformation.

The Philippines did not create these risks. But we are disproportionately exposed to their consequences.

We sit at the crossroads of climate volatility, fragile supply chains, food and energy price shocks, cyber vulnerability and geopolitical spillovers. When global systems destabilize, the impact arrives here faster and harder — and recovery costs us more.

This is the uncomfortable truth: Global existential risk translates into local financial fragility.

And that is where insurance becomes decisive.

Clock is warning of systemic

failure — not isolated disasters

What the Bulletin is signaling is not the likelihood of one singular apocalypse, but the danger of cascading failures — multiple crises overwhelming institutions simultaneously.

Insurance professionals understand this dynamic well.

A typhoon is survivable.

A pandemic is survivable.

A cyber disruption is survivable.

But when disasters overlap — when climate loss collides with supply shocks, governance stress, digital disruption and public mistrust — the question is no longer whether losses occur, but whether systems hold.

In such moments, underinsurance is not just a personal hardship.

It becomes a national risk amplifier.

Philippine protection gap is now a strategic vulnerability

Too many Filipinos remain uninsured or inadequately protected — not only against catastrophic loss, but against income interruption, health shocks, agricultural failure, and small and medium enterprises (SME) collapse.

In calmer times, this is a developmental concern. At 85 seconds to midnight, it is a resilience failure.

Because uninsured households fall into poverty faster.

Uninsured businesses close permanently.

Uninsured communities depend longer on government aid — straining public finances precisely when fiscal space is shrinking.

In a world of cascading crises, the protection gap is no longer a market statistic.

It is a fault line.

What the industry can — and must — do now

The Philippine insurance industry cannot pull back the Doomsday Clock by itself. But it can reduce the probability that global shocks become national breakdowns.

That responsibility is squarely within our ambit.

Five actions are no longer optional:

First: Treat insurance explicitly as resilience infrastructure. This means aligning product design, capital allocation and industry advocacy with national resilience outcomes — not just premium growth.

Second: Close the protection gap at scale. Microinsurance, parametric covers, agricultural risk pools, SME business interruption products — these must move from niche solutions to industry priorities, supported by data, technology and distribution partnerships.

Third: Invest seriously in catastrophe modeling and reinsurance depth. As climate volatility intensifies, underpriced risk is not competitive — it is destabilizing. Solvency is resilience.

Fourth: Make claims efficiency a trust mandate, not an operational metric. In an era of disinformation and institutional distrust, claims performance is the industry’s most powerful credibility signal.

Fifth: Elevate cyber and AI risk to the level of systemic concern. These are no longer IT issues. They are insurable threats with economy-wide implications, requiring shared standards, data and coordination.

None of these actions require new treaties or global summits.

They require industry will.

Leadership is what the clock is demanding

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was blunt in its assessment: The clock moved forward because of failure of leadership.

Leadership is not only the domain of presidents and generals.

In moments of accelerating risk, leadership also belongs to institutions that stabilize societies quietly — by enabling recovery, restoring confidence and preventing economic free fall.

That has always been the insurance industry’s deeper purpose.

Midnight is not inevitable — but inaction is a choice

The Doomsday Clock is not a prophecy. It is a warning calibrated by scientists who believe catastrophe can still be avoided.

For the Philippines, the lesson is stark: We cannot control global geopolitics, but we can control how prepared our people are when shocks arrive.

If midnight is approaching, then insurance is not just about protection.

It is about continuity.

It is about social stability.

It is about keeping crises from becoming a collapse.

At 85 seconds to midnight, the most dangerous response is not fear.

It is complacency.

And the most constructive response — for our industry — is to finally act like the resilience institution the country will increasingly depend on.

Source: www.manilatimes.net