The likelihood of El Niño developing later this year (2023) is increasing according to a new update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This would have the opposite impacts on weather and climate patterns in many regions of the world to the long-running La Niña and would likely fuel higher global temperatures. The unusually stubborn La Niña has now ended after a three-year run and the tropical Pacific is currently in an ENSO-neutral state (neither El Niño nor La Niña). There is a 60% chance for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño during May-July 2023, and this will increase to about 70% in June-August and 80% between July and September, according to the WMO update. WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas said, “We just had the eight warmest years on record, even though we had a cooling La Niña for the past three years and this acted as a temporary brake on global temperature increase. “The development of an El Niño will most likely lead to a new spike in global heating and increase the chance of breaking temperature records.” Professor Taalas said, “The world should prepare for the development of El Niño, which is often associated with increased heat, drought or rainfall in different parts of the world. It might bring respite from the drought in the Horn of Africa and other La Niña- related impacts but could also trigger more extreme weather and climate events.” El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every two to seven years and episodes usually last nine to 12 months. El Niño events are typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the southern US, the Horn of Africa and central Asia. In contrast, El Niño can also cause severe droughts over Australia, Indonesia, and parts of southern Asia. Source: asiainsurancereview.com

The Government requested the World Bank to undertake a study on the state of Agriculture Insurance in the Philippines and to propose their short to medium term recommendations and action plan to further develop this class of business in the country. The resulting report entitled “Reforming Agriculture Insurance in the Philippines” includes an analysis of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation; the adequacy of its coverages; efficiency of its operations; premium subsidy targeting along with their recommendations on the entry of the Private sector. PIRA as represented by Executive Director Michael Rellosa was then invited to a high-level round-table discussion to discuss the World Bank’s findings and recommendations as well as short to medium term action plan, going forward. Attendees:

Covered Entities shall be required to submit their respective ORSA Policies to the Commission no later than 30 June 2023. Entities who meet the criteria for mandatory ORSA after FY 2023 shall be required to submit their respective ORSA Policies no later than 30 June of the year after meeting the criteria in Rule I(E). For more information, kindly refer to Circular CL No. 2022-41.

The Philippine new insurance commissioner is urging the insurance industry to tap new technologies to provide Filipinos with better access to insurance. Insurance Commissioner Reynaldo A. Regalado, who took the oath of office in March 2023, was speaking at the 16th Philippine lnsurance Summit held in April. The summit had the theme, "Climate Change — A Deadly Threat to Mankind: Taking the Lead Towards Sustainability and Resilience". Mr. Regalado highlighted the role of the insurance industry in the country's economic growth amidst risks brought by climate change. Based on the 2021 Financial Inclusion Survey by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the proportion of adult Filipinos who have some form of insurance coverage in 2021 is 48%. Climate events are “no longer a force majeure” Climate change-triggered events like super typhoons, massive flooding, or landslides can no longer be considered a “force majeure” or an act of God, reported Business Mirror, quoting Dean Antonio G M La Vina, associate director for Climate Policy and International Relations at the Manila Observatory. He made the comments in his keynote speech during the summit. “Climate change is not an Act of God. It is not force majeure. It is predictable,” Mr La Vina said. He called on the insurance industry to adapt and innovate to mitigate the impact of climate-related disasters. Source: asiainsurancereview.com

Looking for the latest trends and insights in the insurtech industry? Look no further than ITC Asia! ITC Asia is the region’s largest insurtech event - offering unparalleled access to the most comprehensive and global gathering of tech entrepreneurs, investors, and insurance industry incumbents. Over the course of three days, the industry will convene to showcase new innovations, learn how to increase productivity and reduce costs, and ultimately enrich policyholders' lives. Superlative networking, with tens of thousands of meetings, is one of the hallmarks of an ITC event. Hear from key players in the insurance industry about where the market is heading, such as Manulife, Swiss Re, Zurich Insurance, Munich Re and more! Here are some of our confirmed speakers: · Chris Wei, Chief Client & Innovation Officer, Sunlife · Vinay Surana, Chief Executive Officer (Asia Pacific), Allianz Partners · Dr Yao Yuhui, Chief Data Officer, FWD Group · Jonas Boltz, CEO, Ergo Insurance Singapore · Jonathan Rake, CEO APAC, Swiss Re Corporate Solutions · Peta Latimer, CEO, Mercer Singapore · Michael Gourlay, Chairman, QBE Asia · Philippe Vezio, Deputy CEO & Chief Underwriting Officer, Tokio Marine Asia · Rohit Nambiar, Group Chief Executive Officer, Tune Protect Group · Tomasz Kurczyk, Chief Information Technology Officer, Prudential Financial Don’t miss the opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation! ITC Asia will take place on 30 May 2023 – 1 Jun 2023 at Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Singapore. To save USD 200 off your conference pass, use the code PIRA200 Register here: http://bit.ly/3lV6VPb For questions, please reach out to Sherlyn at Sherlyn.Tay@clarionevents.com

Dante O. Portula, GIZ Senior Advisor; Geric Laude, SVP, Pioneer Insurance; Jocel, Kuro Strategic Management Services; Michael Rellosa, Executive Director; Greg Barrios; Agnes Silaya; Marie Louise Lorenzo.

Held last April 26, 2023, at the Dusit Thani Hotel with the theme "Climate Change - A Deadly Threat to Mankind: Taking the Lead Towards Sustainability and Resilience".

In a courtesy call to the newly appointed Insurance Commissioner, the PIRA Board of Directors and Officers committed to continue their support to Atty. Reynaldo A. Regalado in working together with the Regulator to strengthen the insurance industry and serve the needs of the insuring public. Following the usual introductions of the members of the PIRA and the IC leadership, Commissioner Regalado opened the meeting with an informal exchange of issues in order of priority faced by the industry. The meeting culminated with Commissioner Regalado administering the oath of office of the 2023 PIRA Board members.

Recently, I was talking to a colleague I admire about my work on nuclear winter theory when the colleague asked quite innocently, “Wasn’t that, like, dispelled in the 1980s?” It was a vexing question, but not surprising. Under President Reagan, the US Defense Department did its best to undermine the claims of Carl Sagan and others who amplified scientific findings about the possible climatic consequences of nuclear war. In a 1985 report, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger argued that climate models did not yet provide sufficient certainty to warrant acting upon the winter hypothesis, despite the expert consensus that had begun to take shape. Yet, thanks to advances in climate science since the 1980s, our ability to simulate the effects of nuclear detonations has improved significantly. Although there is disagreement about the extent and exact conditions under which a nuclear exchange could lower Earth’s surface temperature for long periods—threatening large-scale famine, among other dire consequences—the fundamental premise of nuclear winter theory is now widely accepted by reputable scientists. Encounters like the one I had with my colleague illustrate that, in many ways, the nuclear field continues to suffer from a tendency toward insularity that fails to take other relevant areas of research into account. Nuclear issues are part of a web of converging catastrophic and existential risks to humanity. Although such risks do not occur in a vacuum, the study and practice of mitigating them too often does. I began my career at Sandia National Laboratories, where I was recruited to work on safeguarding nuclear materials against malicious actors to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. A few years ago, my frustration with the siloing of the field led me to transition into an interdisciplinary research environment. Now, I am convinced, as water policy expert Sandra Postel has argued, that addressing just one crisis “bit by bit and step by step” will lead to failure in addressing major global risks. To be effective, those who hope to reduce the probability and impact of existential risks must make themselves literate in multiple crises, discerning how their work affects, and is affected by, other domains. They must also understand how their work impacts the communities most vulnerable to catastrophic risks. A new epoch, a new type of practitioner. While human beings have always been vulnerable to naturally occurring hazards—including volcanoes, asteroids, and infectious diseases—the period following World War II introduced numerous human-caused (or anthropogenic) risks to society. Post-1945, the world experienced a Great Acceleration in globalized economic activity, resulting in an intensification of environmental harms, including emissions of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide. In the decades that followed, anthropogenic risks from nuclear weapons, increasingly sophisticated biological weapons, and artificial intelligence (AI)—to name a few—also ballooned. As a result, humanity now has a greater ability to inflict widespread harm on the planet than ever before. Along with the power to damage the natural environment on a massive scale, humans also have an unprecedented capacity to undermine the long-term survival of their own species. Indeed, some scientists have suggested that the first detonation of a nuclear weapon at the Trinity Site in New Mexico should be considered the official start of an Anthropocene Epoch, as it marked the introduction of the most destructive technology in human history. In the context of these evolving global human impacts, the task of limiting their most catastrophic consequences is an enormous one. Plans to guard against global disaster must account for the sheer magnitude and complexity of such risks, as well as the ways in which they might interact unexpectedly, augmenting one another or creating unintended cascading effects. Take nuclear winter, for instance: Beyond killing hundreds of thousands or millions of people immediately, even a “small” regional nuclear exchange could wreak havoc on the environment, dealing a shattering blow to ecosystems already struggling with rapid biodiversity loss caused by human activities. Under such circumstances, modelling suggests that global agriculture could also falter, with billions dying of starvation. Anthropogenic climate change is itself a source of risk that could cascade into or intersect with others. The more the planet warms and natural habitats are destroyed, the more wild animals will be displaced. Their movements can allow for pathogens to spread more easily, creating a greater risk of disease transmission from animals to humans, which can lead to global pandemics. These looming possibilities demand actionable research to address converging risks within a shrinking window of time. Accordingly, in the last two decades, a growing discipline has coalesced around the study of catastrophic and existential risks to humanity. Learning from the study of catastrophic and existential risks. The benefits of the cross-disciplinary approach to reducing catastrophic and existential risks to humanity are numerous. First, such an approach improves research by making optimal use of limited resources and sharing insights, failures, and lessons across areas of risk. Having previously worked mostly with specialists in the nuclear field, at Cambridge’s Center for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) I now interact daily with colleagues whose expertise spans volcano risk, AI safety and ethics, planetary defence against asteroids, food systems, and climate advocacy movements, among other topics. The consolidation of such disparate academic, technical, and policy expertise in one organization creates a venue for constructive criticism from previously unexplored angles. In my own experience researching the intersection of risks from AI and nuclear weapons, for example, a marrying of technical and policy expertise from both the nuclear and AI fields is absolutely vital. Second, an interdisciplinary approach to catastrophic risks acknowledges that individual risks are part of a web in which each strand has implications for all others. Resilience against one risk may also aid readiness against another. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the world’s lack of preparedness to cope with events that disrupt global supply chains and infrastructure, with shocks in one part of the world causing ripple effects throughout. The lessons learned should inform not just how we mitigate likely risks, but also how we build resilience against worst-case scenarios or unexpected outcomes. Having an awareness of all identified risk sources can help governments to formulate long-term plans for each, without allowing a singular issue to consume disproportionate energy and resources. There is also a considerable opportunity to innovate policies that alleviate multiple issues at once. For instance, the positive effects of forest conservation extend to pandemic prevention, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity retention. And general restraint about the development of potentially dangerous AI systems leaves less room for AI to be deployed prematurely in high-stakes military settings, such as the command and control of nuclear weapons systems. Third, the cognitive and emotional weight of daunting challenges is smaller when shared. Humans are not naturally skilled at long-term planning and can become numb to high-risk events, as has been seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Often, colleagues from separate areas of research can provide new tools for understanding one’s own research focus. For example, researchers studying the framing of climate change as a threat to security might learn volumes from the benefits and harms of securitization in other areas, such as HIV/AIDS. Viewing individual catastrophic risks within the context of all catastrophic risk implicates the long-term impacts of our work, which in turn should engender a commitment to intergenerational justice and ethics. While working in the nuclear field, I often felt dismayed by short-term thinking, which fixated on incremental steps in arms control without questioning the long-term consequences of particular policies. When the possibility of catastrophic events, or even human extinction, is treated as a starting point, issues like nuclear war cannot be easily sterilized. The study of catastrophic risks inherently asks how actions will affect both the present moment and generations far into the future. My argument for a cross-disciplinary approach to existential risks is not meant to diminish the ongoing importance of specialized research. To be sure, the risks to humanity that we know about so far are each distinct and require tailored methods of mitigation. But work on distinct areas of risk is stronger when it is underpinned by shared goals and legible to audiences outside one’s own discipline. In their ground-breaking research on the recent history of scientific obfuscation, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway demonstrated that political obstacles to risk mitigation are often eerily similar across different subject areas; the same actors aiming to sow the seeds of climate denial were also responsible for creating doubt about the validity of nuclear winter theories or the need for decisive action to address the ozone hole. Confronting catastrophic risk requires good stewardship of information; if complex issues are not communicated accurately and ethically to the public and shielded from corrupt special interests, risk mitigation can—and will—stall. Centering frontline communities. It might seem self-evident that plans and strategies to mitigate risk should avoid creating new harms themselves. But in the same way that mainstream climate activism often shirks environmental justice, research on catastrophic risks frequently neglects and excludes the communities most vulnerable to those risks. Being from New Mexico, I often ponder this disconnect. My own family’s history makes my relationship to the US nuclear weapons program personal: When the very first nuclear test was conducted in 1945, my grandfather Antonio and his siblings felt the earth shake violently. Confused and frightened, they huddled together in their small home near the Sandia mountains. And due to the legacy of nuclear testing in New Mexico, family friends have received cancer diagnoses following their exposure to contaminated water. (Similar struggles are documented at length by Myrriah Gómez in her recent book, Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos.) From uranium mining on the Navajo Nation to nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands, the frontline communities of nuclear weapon programs are not unlike those experiencing the worst of the climate crisis. If other catastrophic events unfold, these same historically marginalized communities will suffer again. Not surprisingly for a field with origins in the elite academic environments of Western Europe and the United States, the study of catastrophic and existential risks often neglects these perspectives—in both the substance of the research and the demographics of the field’s membership. Frontline communities have faced threats to their survival in a way that most researchers and policymakers have not. They possess valuable knowledge about how to cope and adapt. The question of what constitutes a catastrophic or existential risk, as well as how these risks relate to one another, is intricately tied to who you ask. In the face of converging risks, the effort to ameliorate them needs diversity of thought and experience. Just as researchers cannot thoroughly grasp their own disciplines without knowing how they interact with others, they will lack a clear picture of the risks the world faces until they learn from the communities that bear the brunt of inaction. Source: thebulletin.org

Health longevity, or the length of a time people think they will remain in good health, is an emerging concern among Filipinos surveyed, especially as they consider the financial costs of critical illnesses against a backdrop of economic uncertainties, according to a new study by Manulife. The new “Manulife Asia Care Survey 2023” shows that while the surveyed Filipinos on average expect to retire at 59 years of age, they anticipate only remaining healthy for three years post-retirement. Of those surveyed, Filipino millennials aged 25 to 34 are the most pessimistic, believing they will only remain healthy until they are 55, below the average perceived health longevity. “Filipinos are realizing that personal health issues cannot be isolated from the financial implications of critical illness, along with wider economic uncertainties,” said Mr. Rahul Hora, president and CEO of Manulife Philippines. “While it is inevitable that our bodies change as we age and that the state of the global economy may be beyond our control, Filipinos can take proactive steps to strengthen their health and finances and have a more financially secure future.” Improving health to reduce risks associated with healthcare costs The Manulife study noted that the financial risk posed by poor health lies in the cost of medical treatment, a significant concern for many Filipinos. Nearly half (49%) of those surveyed said that the expense of treatment was their number one health management worry. Other concerns of those surveyed include loss of income or job because of illness (37%) and not knowing who will take care of them in the event of illness (26%). Almost all of those surveyed are worried about at least one illness, with heart disease, diabetes and cancer being the top three main fears. The Manulife study also found that around a third of Filipinos surveyed believe they currently enjoy excellent physical and mental health. With concerns about both their current health and health longevity, nearly all Filipinos surveyed claim that they are taking actions to manage their well-being through exercise (65%), better diet (62%), regular body checks (52%), and closer self-monitoring (50%). Interest in health insurance on the rise With their interwoven concerns about their health, finances and the economy, the Filipinos surveyed are clearly interested in insurance (80%), the highest in the region (average 68%), mainly because of the protection it offers against financial risk (54%). However, their current ownership of insurance (59%) is the lowest in the region (average 70%). In the next 12 months, however, 87% of those surveyed said they intend to buy insurance, with health (36%), life (34%), and hospitalization (33%) insurance topping the list. Filipinos are the most worried about inflation in the region Despite their concerns about the future, especially about health, most of those surveyed (57%) feel confident about their current finances, with more than three-quarters (77%) expecting their finances to improve in the coming 12 months. Almost three-quarters express confidence in being able to achieve their financial goals (72%), such as saving for retirement (55%), paying for healthcare and medical treatment costs (43%), and emergencies (36%). This optimism, which may be reflective of a post-COVID euphoria and, to an extent, the mobility of the workforce, is tempered by the threat of inflation (75%), which has emerged as the most prominent financial concern among Filipinos polled, more than in any of the other markets surveyed in the region. The other main threats cited are an economic slowdown (56%) and rising healthcare costs (38%). These concerns may have merit given that 81% of Filipinos surveyed said that cash and bank deposits are the primary ways they believe will help achieve their goals. The “Manulife Asia Care Survey” was conducted via online self-completed questionnaires in seven markets: mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam. A total of 7,224 people, aged 25 to 60 years old, were surveyed in late December 2022 and early January 2023. In the Philippines, 1,004 people were surveyed. Each person surveyed either owns insurance or intends to buy insurance. Source: asiainsurancereview.com