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.
Insurability is becoming a leading indicator of property value. In England, 1 in 9 new homes built in 2022 to 2024 sit in medium or high flood risk areas, and homes built since 2009 are excluded from Flood Re. This article sets out why insurers see the risk first, why adaptation and resilience need a
Insurers see climate risk first. The housing market should be listening. Read More »
On 7 October, I’ll be speaking at the ABI’s General Insurance Conference in London, in the morning session on property risk and resilience. The framing for the day is “risk to resilience.” I want to use my session to push that framing further, because most of the industry conversation still treats resilience as a cost
Data from the European Central Bank gives the clearest picture yet of how climate risk is being priced into European commercial real estate. The findings split cleanly into two stories: one about price, one about liquidity. Investors, insurers, and boards need both. The headline number The ECB working paper Pricing or panicking? Commercial real estate
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 »
