The Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have launched the "Open Sesame" initiative, aimed to identify how to finance climate resilience measures before climate-related losses hit balance sheets and strain insurance capacity.
Open Sesame is described by the partners as a ground-breaking effort to unlock financing for preventive and adaptive climate measures. The project aims to develop a finance framework that makes it easier for organisations to invest in resilience ahead of severe weather and other climate-driven events, rather than relying on post-disaster funding and indemnity.
FERMA and WBCSD noted that climate-driven losses are likely to outpace private insurance capacity, a trend already visible in catastrophe-exposed markets where secondary perils are driving frequent, costly events. The result is a persistent protection gap between total economic losses and insured losses, particularly for climate-sensitive perils and regions.
While public-private partnerships are increasingly viewed as essential to sharing risk and stabilising coverage, FERMA and WBCSD pointed out that most capital today is still directed towards post-event response and reconstruction rather than pre-event prevention.
Open Sesame is intended to help shift that balance. The initiative is aimed at defining and structuring a dynamic, unified, finance framework that will enable organisations to more easily and efficiently fund climate-related risk management and mitigation, while supporting their adaptation to climate change through responsible and efficient capital raising.
The concept is to treat resilience measures as strategic investments that can attract capital and, potentially, favourable insurance terms, rather than as discretionary costs. In practice, this could include projects such as flood defences, strengthened building standards, wildfire risk reduction or supply chain adaptation, supported by finance structures that recognise and reward their impact on risk.
Alongside representatives from FERMA's partners and WBCSD member companies, Open Sesame will bring together expertise from across the risk and finance ecosystem, including reinsurers, brokers, risk modellers and other. The initiative is supported by Boston Consulting Group, acting as secretariat to the partnership.
Experts from Allianz Commercial, Aon, FM, Howden, among others, have already confirmed their participation, with more organisations expected to join. This breadth of participants signals an attempt to link technical climate-risk analytics and risk engineering with capital providers and sustainable finance frameworks, so that resilience projects can be financed, measured and reported in a way that fits both market and regulatory expectations.
This initial consultation phase will culminate in the publication of an interim report later in the year.
The report will set out targeted deliverables across the four workstreams, share findings from stakeholders and outline pracƟcal next steps for developing the climate resilience finance framework.
The insurance sector will be watching how far Open Sesame can move the market from broad statements about resilience towards agreed methods, metrics and structures that can be embedded in underwriting, investment and client advisory work, and ultimately help preserve the insurability of climate‑exposed assets and activities.
"Expanding access to dedicated funding mechanisms for prevention and risk-mitigation measures is critical to reducing loss frequency and severity, strengthening resilience, and improving the long-term insurability of exposed assets and activities," said FERMA CEO Laurent Nihoul. "Open Sesame is critical for corporate leaders striving to address the urgent financial challenge of climate resilience, enabling them to invest proactively to ensure their organisations are prepared and robustly positioned to manage a rapidly evolving climate."
