Global food security tops Aon Benfield summit agenda

Aon Benfield highlighted the need for greater food security in response to trade policies, price volatility and the implications of catastrophe events at their 13th Biennial Hazards Conference in Australia.

The broker is looking to highlight some of the big trends affecting the industry and likely to shape its future in the coming decades. Focusing upon food security, Aon Benfield said that “population increases, income growth and dietary change” are all raising concerns around food security.

Highlighting losses in major wheat producing regions from extreme weather as a case in point, Aon Benfield said that they had resulted in significant increases in the global price of wheat, “contributing to social unrest and political instability in certain regions.”

Speaking at the event, Rade Musulin, chief operating officer of Aon Benfield Analytics Asia Pacific said: “Global food security is likely to become a major social, economic and political issue in the coming decades. It shares many links to the ‘normal’ risks we think of in the realm of natural disasters. However, more people are at risk globally from this issue than from the cyclones, earthquakes and tsunamis that we are more familiar with.”

Aon Benfield is exploring the potential for re/insurers to take a greater role in the transfer of food security risk into the re/insurance arena. Musulin cited multi-peril crop insurance and index-linked instruments as potential areas of growth for the industry.