The Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF), a regional organisation working to strengthen financial protection against disasters and climate-related risks, has outlined progress made during 2025 and identified areas requiring further development in its latest annual report.
Titled Protecting What Matters: Scaling Disaster and Climate Risk Insurance Across Southeast Asia, SEADRIF’s 2025 Annual Report considers the practical requirements for expanding development insurance beyond individual pilot schemes and towards wider, long-term financial protection for governments and communities across the region.
SEADRIF said its experience during the year demonstrated the potential for insurance mechanisms to become part of established disaster risk financing systems. Its work included expanding sovereign protection in Lao PDR, developing new insurance products, securing private reinsurance capacity and working with regional and international partners on further initiatives.
In Lao PDR, SEADRIF worked with the government to develop #PEOPLE, which the organisation describes as the world’s first sovereign parametric insurance product to use a trigger based on the number of people affected by a disaster, with the impact reported directly by the government.
SEADRIF explained that it renewed USD $16 million of sovereign insurance protection for Lao PDR during 2025. It also reported a USD $2 million payout being made within six days, taking total payouts to the country since 2023 to USD $6.5 million. A further USD $10 million in private reinsurance capacity was mobilised to support sovereign disaster risk protection in Lao PDR.
Alongside its work in individual countries, SEADRIF continued efforts to develop regional approaches to disaster and climate risk financing. The organisation began preparing two new facilities designed to extend financial protection into additional sectors and countries.
SEADRIF-SAFE is being developed to provide protection for public infrastructure and the essential services supported by that infrastructure. SEADRIF-RAISE, meanwhile, is being developed with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with a focus on expanding the regional agricultural insurance market, encouraging investment in agricultural resilience and supporting food security.
SEADRIF also reported further cooperation with international partners during 2025. The organisation signed a €4.7 million joint grant with the Global Shield Solutions Platform (GSSP), together with three other regional risk pools. It also said that more than 500 officials across ASEAN received training on disaster risk financing.
According to SEADRIF, the experience outlined in the annual report highlights both the opportunities and practical challenges involved in expanding development insurance. Building effective systems requires governments, development partners and insurers to coordinate funding, expertise, insurance capacity and policy support over the longer term.
Benedikt Signer, CEO of SEADRIF Insurance Company, commented: “Southeast Asia has the capital, the mandate, and the expertise for development insurance to work. What’s been missing is putting them together into protection at scale. In Lao PDR, we showed what that takes. Our priority now is to make effective disaster risk finance the norm across Southeast Asia, not the exception.”
SEADRIF added that its focus following the progress made in 2025 will be on extending financial protection across more countries and sectors, while continuing to develop insurance solutions that can respond to the region’s growing exposure to disaster and climate risks.
