Closer to midnight? What 2026 Doomsday Clock should mean for PH insurance industry

By Michael F. Rellosa

On January 27, 2026, the world will again pause for an unusual ritual: the unveiling of the Doomsday Clock—a symbolic measure of how close humanity is to self-destruction. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, joined this year by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, will announce the new setting and explain why the world is—or is not—moving closer to midnight.

The question being asked is simple and unsettling: Will we be closer to midnight?

But for those of us in the Philippine insurance and reinsurance industry, the deeper question is this: What does a world moving closer to catastrophe mean for protection, resilience, and national stability—especially for a country as exposed as ours?

The Clock Is Not Just Global—It’s Local

In January 2025, the Clock was moved to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been. The Bulletin cited escalating nuclear risk, climate breakdown, biological threats, and the accelerating use of artificial intelligence in conflict and disinformation.

To many, this sounds remote—concerns that belong to superpowers and international institutions.

But the Philippines does not enjoy the luxury of distance from global volatility.

Because in a world racing toward systemic risk, our exposure multiplies.

And unlike wealthier nations, we are more vulnerable to shocks that ripple through supply chains, markets, food systems, energy costs, and migration. When global instability increases, the Philippines absorbs the impact faster—and recovers slower.

The Doomsday Clock may be set in Chicago, but the consequences are felt in Tacloban, Cagayan, Bicol, and Zamboanga.

What the Insurance Industry Must Understand

We are used to working with risk—but we must accept this reality: the nature of risk is changing.

The Doomsday Clock is not only about warheads and treaties. It is about a world where interconnected threats are converging: climate instability, geopolitical tension, emerging technology, and weakened public trust.

For the Philippine insurance and reinsurance sector, this means three things:

1. Catastrophe is becoming more frequent and more complex

2. Losses are increasingly systemic, not isolated

3. Protection gaps are becoming national security vulnerabilities

   
   

In other words: when a country is underinsured, it is not only economically fragile—it becomes politically and socially fragile as well.

We must stop thinking of insurance merely as a financial service. In a world nearing midnight, insurance is a resilience infrastructure.

The Protection Gap Is a National Risk

In my New Year message, I wrote that insurance is not simply a business—it is a promise, a social mechanism, and a stabilizing force. That is not rhetorical flourish. It is a practical truth.

Because when disasters strike—and they will—insurance determines whether a family rebuilds or falls into poverty. Whether a business reopens or closes permanently. Whether a community recovers quickly or remains dependent on aid for years.

And yet, we continue to face an uncomfortable fact: too many Filipinos remain uninsured or underinsured.

This is the protection gap, and it is widening in dangerous ways.

In an era of intensified disasters and cascading crises, an uninsured population is not merely a market opportunity—it is a national vulnerability.

The Doomsday Clock and the Risk of “Cascading Failure”

The Bulletin’s warning is not simply that any single catastrophe could happen. It is that the world is approaching a threshold where multiple crises compound each other, overwhelming systems.

Insurance professionals understand this concept well: the difference between a manageable loss and a catastrophic loss is often not the event itself, but whether systems can absorb it.

Consider what happens when:

• climate-driven disasters disrupt food and power supply,

• geopolitical conflict raises commodity prices,

• disinformation accelerates panic and destabilizes governance,

• and AI-driven cyber incidents cause financial and operational breakdown.

That is not science fiction. Those are cascading failures.

And this is exactly what the Doomsday Clock is trying to signal: that humanity is nearing a point where our interconnected systems—political, ecological, economic, digital—may fail faster than we can respond.

What PIRA and the Industry Must Commit To

If the Clock moves closer to midnight on January 27, our response should not be despair. It should be discipline and purpose.

The Philippine insurance industry must commit to five urgent priorities:

1. Close the protection gap through inclusive products

   Microinsurance, parametric solutions, agriculture and SME protection, catastrophe covers—these must become mainstream, not marginal.

   
   

2. Strengthen catastrophe modeling and reinsurance capacity

   We must price risk accurately, invest in data, and ensure solvency for larger shocks.

   
   

3. Modernize claims and make trust visible

   Trust is not built through messaging—it is built at claim time, when policyholders are most vulnerable.

   
   

4. Treat cyber risk as a national resilience issue

   AI-driven threats and systemic cyber disruption are rapidly becoming insurable events of national consequence.

   
   

5. Partner with government and regulators for resilience ecosystems

   The public does not experience risk in silos. Neither should our protection systems.

   
   

Midnight Is Not a Metaphor for the Philippines

For some nations, the Doomsday Clock is symbolism.

For the Philippines, existential risk is already familiar. We experience it every typhoon season. Every flood. Every earthquake. Every disruption that erases livelihoods and reorders lives overnight.

So when the world asks, “Are we closer to midnight?” we should answer with clarity:

We are already living in the hour where resilience determines survival.

Our task—our duty as an industry—is to ensure that when crises come, fewer Filipinos face them alone.

And if the Clock moves closer this year, then let it also move us—toward a stronger insurance culture, deeper national resilience, and a clearer sense of what our industry was built to do.

Because if midnight is approaching, then insurance is not just protection.

It is preparedness.

It is recovery.

It is national stability.

And it is time we fully stepped into that role.

Source: manilatimes.net