MACH and Insurance For Good Learning Lab

To help manage the fiscal risk of disasters for both the municipality and its residents, local leaders need a deeper understanding of insurance and risk-transfer tools and how to integrate them into broader community resilience and recovery efforts.

Through a partnership between Insurance for Good, led by MACH Co-PI Carolyn Kousky, and MACH, the Insurance for Good Learning Lab provides education and capacity-building by subject-matter experts to community cohorts, as well as coordination and support for peer learning. This one-year program includes education on risk transfer and the insurance sector, insights from national experts, case studies, lessons learned from peer community leaders, and tailored support from the Insurance for Good and MACH teams.

Photograph of participants of MACH and Insurance for Good's Learning Lab kick off event.
Read more about the Learning Lab on Insurance for Good's website here.
Insurance for Good's Primer Series
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What is a Catastrophe Model?

In partnership with MACH, Insurance for Good developed this primer on Catastrophe Modeling. Natural hazards, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires, can cause widespread and devastating losses. To decide where to offer coverage and how much to charge, insurers and reinsurers must quantify the potential frequency and magnitude of claims. To stay solvent after a major disaster, they need to understand not just expected annual losses but also worst-case scenarios. To do this, they use catastrophe (“cat”) models.

Read the Primer here.

Municipal Finances Municipal Finances: Fiscal Analysis Calculator
MACH researcher Junghoon Lee, with support from Dr. Clinton Andrews and Dr. David Listokin, has developed an online tool to support communities in exploring financial analyses related to flood buyouts. Flood buyouts occur when a federal or state agency purchases homes located in flood-prone areas, allowing residents to reduce their flood risk by relocating to a safer location. Due to the extensive data and calculations that analyzing these impacts requires, residents and local governments may hesitate to consider buyouts— even when they could be a financially beneficial option. This tool aims to simplify the process and help communities make more informed decisions.

Explore the tool here.

Fiscal Impact simulation tool

Coming soon...
MACH researchers are working collaboratively with stakeholders, one another, and MACH staff to translate their research into useful, usable outputs. Stay tuned for more MACH outputs and tools coming soon.