NEWS RELEASE

October 23, 2024

IAA Releases Paper on Implications of COVID-19 Protection Gaps

The International Actuarial Association (IAA) is pleased to announce the publication of the paper Implications of COVID-19 Protection Gaps developed by the IAA’s Pandemics Task Force.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant gaps in the global insurance framework, exposing vulnerabilities in the ability to provide coverage for the unprecedented economic losses associated with the pandemic. This educational paper explores these “protection gaps”, and highlights the limitations of the insurance industry across property and casualty, life, and health insurance sectors as well as governments in responding to a large-scale crises such as the pandemic.

Actuaries play a key role in addressing these protection gaps by improving stakeholder understanding of insurance limits, fostering appropriate risk management strategies and developing solutions. The paper calls for greater collaboration between governments, insurers, and society to build more resilient systems for future crises. This includes exploring public-private partnerships and adjusting insurance frameworks to address catastrophic events.

This paper is the second of three papers, aimed at creating awareness and increasing the recognition for the potential contribution actuaries as risk experts can make in planning for and managing pandemic-related risks. This paper, along with the first paper titled “Lessons Learned from the Pandemic” , are available on the IAA website PUBLICATIONS / PAPERS / HEALTH.

The Pandemics Risk Task Force will host a webinar on Monday, 25 November 2024 at 12 noon UTC to present the work of the Pandemics Task Force. The webinar is free and open to everyone who is interested. Please use this registration link to register for the webinar.

This activity advances the IAA’s mission and strategic objectives to provide key supranational institutions with actuarial expertise on issues of relevance in global forums and to promote the advancement of scientific knowledge and skills of the actuarial profession.

To learn more about the work of the IAA on this topic, contact the Director of Technical Activities at the IAA Secretariat.

Ce communiqué de nouvelles est aussi disponible en français.

The IAA is the worldwide association of professional actuarial associations, representing over 75,000 actuaries in more than 115 countries, with six special interest Sections for individual actuaries. The IAA was founded in 1895 and exists to encourage the development of a global actuarial profession, acknowledged as technically competent and professionally reliable, which will ensure that the public interest is served. The IAA has 73 Full Member Associations and 27 Associate Member Associations.

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