At the start of 2025, Ivo Menzinger took up the position of Chair of the Insurance Development Forum’s (IDF) Operating Committee, having stepped down from his role as Co-Chair of the Sovereign and Humanitarian Solutions Working Group (SHSHis long leadership of the IDF SHS was marked by collaboration, innovation, and impact, and sets him up for success as Operating Committee Chair.
Under his visionary guidance, the SHS Working Group has grown into a recognized platform for public-private partnerships, bringing together the insurance industry, multilateral organisations, and humanitarian institutions to address disaster risk financing and insurance on a global scale.
At the core of this success has been the ambitious Tripartite Agreement Programme established by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Insurance Development Forum insurance sector members, committed to provide disaster risk solutions to 20 developing countries vulnerable to climate and other natural disasters.
As Ruth Lux and Karina Whalley take over the leadership of SHS, the Working Group’s dedication to driving meaningful action on the ground laid the foundation to continue this vital work.
In this conversation, we reflect with Ivo on the journey of the past years, the milestones achieved, and his vision for the next chapter of the IDF.
Looking back at your years as Co-Chair of the IDF SHS Working Group, what moments or milestones stand out to you as particularly transformative for the group and the IDF mission?
The IDF started as a very small, loose group of like-minded insurance and international development professionals with the common objective to accelerate closing the protection gap. In the private sector we felt that we had the tools and the knowledge to develop and implement innovative insurance schemes to help make developing countries more resilient, but were confronted with a lack of insurance experience of, and demand from, potential beneficiaries. In addition, our companies were often not present in these countries and could not expect appropriate access to decision makers. Working hand-in-glove with multi-lateral as well as national development (finance) institutions and teaming up between companies to share resources in the pre-competitive phase of developing new insurance solutions was therefore the logical thing to do.
In 2016, we called our working group TAF (Technical Assistance Facility), to build a platform focused on systematically helping governments get familiar with using risk financing instruments and thus building up demand for (sub)sovereign protection. My industry co-chair at the time was Michael Roth from Munich Re. The breakthrough came with the visionary leadership of the German government, in particular Ingrid Hoven, at the time Director of the Climate Policy & Finance Department at BMZ and Annette Detken, at the time at KfW. BMZ/KfW were willing to co-invest with industry into the development of climate risk insurance schemes in developing countries.
At the same time, UNDP took the strategic decision to build up its finance related capabilities, which included the Insurance and Risk Finance Facility (IRFF). Over a long wait for our flights at London City Airport in 2018, IRFF’s founder Jan Kellet and I developed a concept note that proposed to establish a programmatic approach between IDF, UNDP and BMZ, which ended up being named “Tripartite Agreement” and was signed during the 2019 UN Climate Summit.
Then we renamed the working group to Sovereign & Humanitarian Solutions (SHS) WG and strengthened its governance and leadership with Claudia Thyme (back then at AXA XL), who led the operationalization of the Tripartite Agreement Programme and the collaboration on projects by the three parties. Later on, Sophie Evans took over from Daniel Clarke, both from the Centre for Disaster Protection, and Tuga Alarskary joined from UNDP, as Co-Chairs for the public sector. Over time we expanded the scope of the SHS’s activities to include working with humanitarian actors on crisis financing and with the World Bank on capacity building programs for government officials.
The Tripartite Agreement Programme by BMZ, UNDP, and the IDF has been a central IDF initiative. Could you share some insights on the progress made with the 20-country engagement target and how these partnerships have evolved over time?
As of March 2025, the Tripartite Agreement Programme is the only operational PPP collaboration platform which develops and implements new climate risk insurance schemes at scale. More than 90 experts from 20 re/insurance companies and brokers, more than 70 UNDP representatives along with many country, region and city government officials have engaged in 24 collaborative country projects already. Four projects have been completed, and we have seen two pilots with beneficiaries on the ground. Currently solutions are being developed in approximately 15 more projects, most are in advanced stages of development. I believe that in the public and private sectors we have learned a lot along the way, including that establishing new, green-field insurance schemes takes a long time and is hard work for all stakeholders involved. I commend all involved for the results achieved to date and their incredible commitment, stamina and perseverance. The programme is a model which delivers many valuable learnings from which we will continue to benefit in the future.
As the industry leadership of IDF SHS is taken up by Ruth Lux and Karina Whalley, what qualities or values do you hope they will bring forward to the next phase of the Working Group’s journey?
Both Ruth Lux (Guy Carpenter) and Karina Whalley (AXA Climate) are very experienced disaster risk financing leaders, who have been personally involved in numerous climate risk insurance projects. They also have a long track record of collaborating with the public sector and are extraordinary team players who will engage effectively with the entire community. They will further develop and shape the SHS WG reflecting new opportunities and challenges, and I am sure part of their plans includes converting the projects in the pipeline, expanding partnerships with other donor countries’ development institutions such as France’s AFD and continuing our efforts with the humanitarian sector, while deepening collaboration with those countries who want to benefit more broadly from risk transfer projects and other insurance solutions and capabilities which IDF can offer.
In your new role as Chair of the IDF Operating Committee, how do you envision the future direction of the IDF, particularly in light of the constantly changing environment in which you operate?
The IDF’s unique value proposition is its focus on action, not just talking. This has earned the organization substantial credibility and has established the IDF as the go-to organization for entities that see the great potential to make developing countries financially more stable and resilient through the use of risk analytics, risk transfer or investments in infrastructure.
IDF gathers individuals who are change-makers; who want to shape the financial future of their emerging markets and developing economies, and/or of their own organizations. We can only sustainably engage resources from industry and development organizations at scale as long as there is an alignment between the mandates that these professionals have in their respective organizations, and the IDF’s activities. For industry members this implies that there needs to be a sufficiently strong business case; the IDF’s programming needs to ultimately unlock commercial opportunities for professionals who are mandated to deliver risk analytical or risk reduction services, to develop risk transfer markets, or to invest in infrastructure in emerging and developing economies.
Legal and regulatory boundary conditions as well as the prevailing development finance architecture play important roles in enabling emerging and developing economies to benefit from this work. Finally, trust in the insurance industry and, especially in the power of its solutions to help create more stable economies, by the governments of these nations, is equally important.
Hence I believe that the strategy to drive focused action, local engagement and targeted advocacy will therefore remain the driver of IDF’s future activity.
The IDF’s impact relies on proactive collaboration between the insurance industry, multilateral organisations, and governments. What new opportunities or challenges do you foresee in expanding these partnerships to address the increasing complexity of global risks?
There is a growing interest from governments and development (finance) institutions in what the insurance industry has to offer. The challenge we all face is that the world is becoming a riskier place and public financial resources are not as readily available anymore. In this context, the role that insurance and its capabilities can play in making countries more financially stable and resilient is being recognized, and this represents a tremendous opportunity.
The IDF, with its broad membership, is ideally positioned to work with the public sector to identify how we can collectively maintain insurability in the face of growing climate risks, and how the industry can strengthen the financial resilience of emerging and developing nations as part of wider reforms to the international development finance architecture. In this context, we are developing a very interesting partnership with the Bridgetown Initiative. At the same time, there is an opportunity to think about evolving the IDF’s mandate beyond the current focus on natural disaster risks. Health is a relevant and important topic in the context of climate impact, as well as inclusive insurance.
