Partnership targets property insurance gaps and enhances climate risk preparedness, supporting responsible business and corporate sustainability. ESG BROADCAST shares key takeaways.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, has partnered with QBE Asia, a division of global insurer QBE Insurance Group, to expand the Building Resilience Index (BRI) program and confront the widening property insurance gap in the Asia-Pacific region. The collaboration marks a strategic effort to embed climate risk awareness into real estate development and insurance, particularly in markets most exposed to climate hazards.
The BRI, introduced by IFC in 2021, is a web-based hazard mapping and resilience assessment framework that allows users to evaluate and benchmark the climate vulnerability of real estate projects. Until now, its application had been primarily limited to developers. Under this new agreement, the BRI framework will be extended to financial institutions, homebuyers, and governments, creating a more inclusive ecosystem for disaster risk reduction.
QBE Asia is the first insurance company to formally integrate with the BRI framework since its inception. This collaboration will not only promote BRI adoption across vulnerable markets such as Viet Nam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong SAR China but also support capacity-building activities including training and technical workshops. These sessions aim to raise stakeholder awareness and facilitate the operational integration of climate risk data into investment and insurance decision-making.
As part of the partnership, IFC and QBE will co-develop insurance products that incentivize resilience. These offerings may include favorable underwriting terms, broader coverage, expedited claims, and parametric insurance models that provide rapid payouts when pre-defined climate events occur. The technical synergy between QBE’s risk modelling tools and BRI’s assessment framework will enhance underwriting precision and promote sustainable pricing practices.
The initiative comes at a time when climate-induced property losses are rising across Asia and the Pacific. As extreme weather events grow in intensity and frequency, a significant share of real estate assets is becoming either high-risk or outright uninsurable. This not only threatens local economic stability but also undermines financial institutions’ ability to manage portfolio-level risks—particularly in countries with low insurance penetration.
“Together with QBE, we’re determined to help close the property insurance gap while promoting resilient development across the region,” said Katia Daude Gonçalves, IFC’s Country Manager for Singapore and Brunei. Ronak Shah, QBE’s CEO of Wholesale Markets Asia, added that combining resilience incentives with technology-driven underwriting would create “smarter, faster, and more reliable insurance products.”
Strategic significance lies in how the IFC-QBE partnership offers a replicable model for integrating climate resilience metrics into mainstream financial and insurance products. For ESG stakeholders, the collaboration underscores the growing intersection of climate risk disclosure and responsible business practices in Asia’s built environment.
ESG BROADCAST will continue monitoring the updates related to this topic. Stay tuned to be updated on the related policy and pivotal regulatory shift.
