Quantitative Impact of Catastrophe Risk Insurance on Community Resilience

Abstract

Catastrophe risk insurance is an important risk management tool that reduces excessive financial burdens of homeowners following a disaster and expedites the recovery of disaster-impacted buildings and the community that they support. This paper proposes a quantitative framework for assessing the effects of catastrophe risk insurance on community resilience. The framework simulates pre- and post-disaster circumstances of a community by explicitly incorporating the characteristics of hazards and properties, individual homeowners financial availability and risk attitudes, and available insurance plans. A small residential community in Miami-Dade County, Florida, following a scenario hazard event (Hurricane Wilma) is used to test the feasibility of the proposed framework. The quantitative impact of insurance on community resilience will provide guidance on how catastrophe risk insurance can be used in a broad resilience planning to achieve its long-term resilience goals.