The intersection of climate risk and real estate insurance is reshaping asset values, financing availability, and fiduciary duty across institutional portfolios. As major insurers withdraw from high-risk markets and forward-looking catastrophe models replace historical underwriting, boards and asset managers face a new class of stranded asset risk. This category covers insurance market dynamics, climate-related coverage gaps, and what the retreat of affordable insurance means for real estate strategy, valuation, and governance.
Key points A commercial building approved today will still be standing in 2075. The rules it is built to, how it is valued, the initial loan conditions and insurance terms all get fixed at the point it is built. A changing context, whether it be new building requirements, climate related risks, buyer sentiment, means that […]
Why Adaptation and Resilience Need a Shared Language in Real Estate Read More »
The UK’s Climate Change Committee convened a citizens’ panel this year. One question: should households facing less climate risk help pay for those facing more. The focus was on adaptation. The panel didn’t resolve it. Nobody has. That’s not a gap in the process. It’s the actual shape of the problem. Published this month in
The climate insurance question that needs a public answer Read More »
Sustainability and climate terminology in real assets moves fast. Reporting frameworks, emissions standards, and regulatory requirements change constantly. This reference covers 70+ acronyms I encounter most often working with clients across real assets, insurance, and the built environment. It spans disclosure frameworks, carbon accounting, financial regulation, and building certifications. V1.8 updated July 2026. Let me
Sustainability acronyms in Real Estate: A Growing List Read More »
Key points The UK’s insurance protection gap stands at 29%. Flood Re, the public-private reinsurance scheme that has kept flood insurance affordable for the highest-risk households since 2016, ends in 2039. Without it, that gap will grow. The Climate Change Committee is explicit on this in its Fourth Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk. What
Flood Risk, insurance, and what remains unanswered: Who pays? Read More »
Key points The buildings being financed today will either prove their value in 2040, or they won’t The question that matters most about any building is not whether it performs well today. It is whether it will still be performing, financeable, and insurable in fifteen years. That is a harder question than it sounds and
Why the data gap is becoming a real asset liability Read More »
Key Points The questions being asked about climate risk in investment committees have changed. Sharper, more specific, harder to deflect with a sustainability report. The gap between what gets disclosed and what is actually known about asset-level exposure has become the central problem. Four interconnected issues sit behind this. None of them are new. But
Closing the Data Gap Across Climate Risk and Real Estate Read More »
Key points Keyah’s market research with real estate professionals reveals a sector that understands the stakes and is still stuck. Real estate professionals are not, for the most part, unaware of what climate risk means for their portfolios. What Keyah’s recent market research found, across conversations with boards, asset managers, and advisory professionals, is something
The Market Knows It’s Running Out of Time. It Just Doesn’t Know What to Do Next. Read More »
Key points I had the opportunity to present at a Parliamentary roundtable chaired by George Freeman MP at Portcullis House in Westminster. The roundtable is being used to inform Freeman’s Inland Flooding Bill, a piece of proposed legislation designed to improve accountability for flood risk, help residents better prepare, and tighten planning rules. Alongside me
Uninsurable Britain? What Australia, New Zealand, and California can teach us Read More »
Key points Real estate portfolios face a fundamental valuation problem: asset prices do not yet fully reflect climate risk. For boards overseeing REITs, pension funds, and institutional portfolios, this mispricing represents fiduciary risk. Valuations anchored to historical data understate future impacts. The following questions provide a framework for assessing whether climate risk is properly reflected
The Valuation Gap: Board Questions for Climate Risk Assessment in Real Estate Read More »
Key points Climate risk is no longer a future concern for real estate portfolios, it’s a present valuation problem, an insurance crisis, and a fiduciary challenge. Boards overseeing REITs, pension fund real estate holdings, and institutional portfolios face a stark reality: the gap between climate risk and asset pricing is widening. A landmark survey of
The Adaptation Imperative: Board Questions for Climate-Resilient Real Estate Read More »
Key points As 2025 comes to a close, real estate investors face a fundamentally transformed landscape where topics including adaptation, resilience, and linked to this, insurance, are no longer peripheral but central to investment strategy, risk management, and value creation. Here are the critical trends reshaping our sector: 1. Divergent Regulatory Trajectories Creating Strategic Complexity
Key points The Guardian headline is blunt, Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk. Insurers are sounding the alarm. Aviva’s report on which the article is based is clear on where we could be by 2050: The result is that homes and communities could
Looking beyond an insurance fix: Flood risk across Great Britain Read More »
