Munich Re Foundation

May 2006

Global reinsurer Munich Re has been handling global risks for over 125 years and has built up extensive technical expertise and know-how in risk management. Partners and clients in over 150 countries form the basis of an exceptional knowledge network.

Created in April 2005 to share knowledge and expertise about global risk management, the Munich Re Foundation offers a platform for multidisciplinary dialogue and action. People at risk are at the core of the Foundation’s work, which aims to mitigate global risks, in particular related to population development and water and improve living conditions of populations at risk.

The Foundation helps to create knowledge, facilitates interdisciplinary exchange and dialogue, and strives to implement innovative but simple solutions. Converting knowledge into action is the abiding principle of the Foundation. The Foundation activities revolve around four main objectives:

• Knowledge accumulation and sharing
• Advocacy and sensitisation
• Interdisciplinary networking
• Field projects

The thematic areas addressed by the Munich Re Foundation include:

• Water: resource and risk factor
• Environmental and climate change
• Disaster prevention
• Development
• Poverty and micro-insurance
• Urbanisation and Megacities

Munich Re Foundation’s collaboration with ProVention focuses on microinsurance, specifically to examine the potential of microinsurance as an innovative risk transfer solution and new market product of commercial viability. The Foundation in cooperation with the CGAP working group on Microinsurance recently hosted an international conference, "Making Insurance Work for the Poor: Current Practices and Lessons Learnt" to analyse case studies of microinsurance schemes from around the world, and to use this forum to debate the feasibility, affordability and commercial viability of extending microinsurance cover to low-income households and business in developing countries. A comprehensive book on Microinsurance will be published late 2006 and a follow on conference will take place in November in South Africa.

More information on the Munich Re Foundation’s activities can be found at: www.munichre-foundation.org.