Hurricane Katrina did massive damage because New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were not appropriately protected. Wherever natural disasters threaten, the government—in its traditional role as public goods provider—must decide what level of protection to provide to an area. It does so by...

Floodplain land-use decisions are made by individuals in households, businesses, and local governments. Whatever the venue, the decisions made are the outcome of multiple interacting influences, with one being consideration of flood risk. The goal of a flood risk communication program may be to...

Insurance is an essential component of household and community resilience: it protects insureds financially against disaster losses, can encourage investments in cost-effective mitigation measures through premium reductions, and facilitates rebuilding of property and long-term recovery following...

Insuring disaster risks can be challenging, due to spatial correlations and fat-tailed loss distributions. This chapter examines catastrophe insurance with a particular focus on events that alter risk assessments in the insurance industry. It addresses two questions: (1) What types of events...

This paper surveys state-mandated programs designed to provide natural catastrophe insurance to property owners and businesses unable to find a policy in the private market. The paper provides an overview of the 10 state programs offering wind or earthquake coverage and outlines the motivation...