Messaging  |  2021-11-24

Everbridge Enters Into First-of-its-Kind Collaboration with Howden to Combine Public Safety Technology with Parametric Insurance to Address Climate Risk and Resilience

Source: Everbridge
Curated by: Gert Jan Wolf - Editor-in Chief for The Critical Communications Review

Everbridge, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVBG), the global leader in Critical Event Management (CEM) and national Public Warning solutions, and Howden, the international insurance broking group, today announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration combining public safety technology with parametric insurance to provide a holistic approach for governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and charities to address climate risk and resilience.

By bringing together Everbridge technology with Howden’s insurance expertise, response and recovery organizations are equipped to manage the entire lifecycle of a catastrophic event. Everbridge technology supports the preparation for and response to an event, while parametric insurance policies deploy much needed capital to the emergency response effort in the event of a major catastrophe. This creates a mechanism to move capital from where it is traditionally deployed, in the relief phase, into the emergency response phase of the critical event, helping to save more lives and reduce property damage before it happens.

“When a major natural disaster occurs, emergency response teams need access to funds quickly and reliably,” said Charlie Langdale, Head of Climate Risk and Resilience at Howden. “Having pre-arranged finance in place enables those delivering the disaster response to get aid to those who need it, when they need it. Because payment is based on pre-determined triggers, validated by third-party data, parametric policies can pay out almost immediately upon the agreed parameters being hit. Whilst Everbridge’s public warning systems mobilize the people needed to respond to disasters, parametric insurance can mobilize the capital to fund the response. This brings together two critical components of resilience to help those responsible for preventing loss of lives and livelihoods by facilitating a faster, more structured response.”

Parametric insurance pays when a pre-defined event occurs and breaches a pre-agreed figure or index. Examples of perils covered and typical triggers include hurricane (windspeed), flood (height), earthquake (shake intensity), pandemic (number of infections) or cyber (reported data breach).

Everbridge’s CEM technology will be leveraged to power a workflow, including data collection, communications and coordination of the emergency response. This will enable governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and charities to deploy insurance capital or assets purchased quickly and effectively to support the emergency response, maximizing the impact of the funding dedicated to relief efforts.