Insurance companies propose mandatory policy for buildings in Peru in the face of natural disasters. They promote resilience and financial protection.

Insurance companies in Peru have proposed the implementation of a mandatory policy for residential buildings, with the aim of safeguarding public and private infrastructure against natural disasters that could cause significant economic losses to the country. César Rivera, general manager of Pacífico Seguros, emphasized the need for having insurance to protect not only material goods, but also essential public services such as bridges, schools, medical posts, and police locations, which currently do not have an insured coverage. Rivera stressed the importance of implementing public policies that promote the country's resilience to catastrophic events, pointing out that allocating a minimal fraction of the public budget to insure infrastructure could be beneficial in the long term. He also highlighted the need to ensure the protection of multifamily buildings, where discrepancies in insurance contracting between apartment owners and common areas are common. In this regard, Alberto Vásquez, general manager of La Positiva Seguros, highlighted the implementation of the Catastrophic Agricultural Insurance (SAC) in Peru, an initiative that aims to protect low-income farmers from adverse weather events that could affect their crops primarily intended for subsistence. Vásquez emphasized that, in many cases, it is public policies that drive insurance contracting in segments of the population that would otherwise not have access to this type of protection. During the 2022-2023 agricultural campaign, the SAC demonstrated its effectiveness by paying indemnities totaling S/ 49 million to 182,000 affected farmers in various regions of Peru. These compensations were granted for damages caused by excessive rain, hail, high temperatures, floods, fires, among other weather events that harm crops and agricultural production in the country. According to data provided by the Peruvian Association of Insurance Companies (Apeseg), the regions that received the highest indemnities during the agricultural campaign were Puno, Apurímac, Ayacucho, Huancavelica, and Cusco, highlighting the importance of having financial protection mechanisms for the most vulnerable sectors of the population in emergency situations. The implementation of mandatory insurance for both public infrastructure and agricultural sectors could be key to strengthening the country's resilience to future natural disasters.