Summary of ISD and StateBook April 15 webinar presentation by Alex Kaplan Executive Vice President for Alternative Risk, AmWINS Parametric Insurance: A New Tool for Disaster Recovery and Community Resilience According to NOAA, the natural disasters of 2023 and 2024 caused over $400 billion in economic damages. As extreme events continue to impact communities across the United States, economic development officials are searching for innovative financial tools to enhance disast

By Lynn Knight, CEcD, and Stephen Jordan — Institute for Sustainable Development The Final Report of the President’s Council to Assess the Federal Emergency Management Agency , released on May 7, confirms what many disaster recovery practitioners have recognized for years: states and local governments will increasingly be expected to lead disaster recovery, with the federal government serving in a more supporting role. The Council’s doctrine — “locally executed, state managed

By Nidia Martinez, Ph.D People and businesses often believe that if they can renew their insurance program year after year, they have “climate change coverage.” That is a misconception. Insurance covers losses from specific events—e.g., hurricanes, floods, wildfires—under defined terms and conditions. It does not cover the underlying trend driving those events. And it has no obligation to renew contracts year after year. While climate change is often described in terms of ris

More than two weeks after Winter Storm Fern swept across the South, many communities remain in a difficult in-between phase: the immediate crisis has passed, but thousands of residents—particularly the elderly, rural, low-income, and medically vulnerable—are still without reliable heat, power, communications, or water. President Trump issued Presidential Disaster Declarations for twelve states , but in many places FEMA Individual Assistance has not yet been activated. This cr

Moving communities from reactive response to continuity by design. C heck out our next webinar on February 11, 2026 if you are interested in learning more! Disasters are not random acts of fate. The storms, hurricanes, fires, and other extreme events that naturally occur are not disasters in themselves. What causes the disasters are the failures of power, water, communications, logistics, and finance —and communities that prepare for those failures recover faster, cheaper, a

As communities across the South—from Texas and Oklahoma through the East Coast—dig out from Winter Storm Fern's historic damage, a familiar pattern is emerging: time is the most expensive commodity . Businesses need to reopen, infrastructure must be restored, and communities expect visible progress—often long before federal reimbursements arrive. Winter Storm Fern has exposed what disaster finance professionals already know: most state and local governments are not structure