Insurance & Risk Financing Initiatives
Asia’s long-term growth prospects for the insurance industry remain strong, underpinned by rapid urbanisation, infrastructure development and trade growth. In turn, this will drive a greater need for insurance and risk financing solutions, as governments, corporates and individuals seek to manage their assets and wealth at risk.
Yet, the region continues to face persistent and structural protection gaps which are impacting the region economically, financially, and socially. Such structural gaps sometimes arose due to the lack of good quality data, as well as less developed loss frequency and severity models in Asia.
To narrow the protection gap and strengthen Asia’s risk resilience, MAS has embarked on a number of industry-wide initiatives to support more robust quantification of risks and the co-creation of innovative risk financing solutions.
Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS)
As part of our vision to grow as the leading ILS hub for Asia, Singapore has taken progressive strides to develop the ILS market in Singapore. This includes:
- Regularly reviewing and updating our regulatory and legal infrastructure to support various ILS instruments.
- Developing Singapore’s ILS ecosystem by incentivising ILS issuers to anchor their operations here through our grant scheme.
- Growing the ILS investor base through investor education and anchoring specialised fund managers here
The ILS Grant Scheme was refreshed in 2025 to defray issuance costs for ILS issued and listed here, encouraging broader market participation while prioritising risks in the Asia-Pacific region.
More information about ILS
Global Asia Insurance Partnership (GAIP)
The Global-Asia Insurance Partnership (GAIP) is a tripartite partnership between the global insurance industry, regulators and policymakers, and academia. GAIP supports Asia’s insurance markets by addressing data gaps, strengthening industry regulator collaboration, and developing insurance talent across the region. Its work focuses on helping governments, regulators and insurers better understand and manage protection gaps, strengthen health and retirement resilience, and respond to the growing impacts of climate change across Asia.
Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF)
In partnership with the Japan Ministry of Finance and supported by the World Bank, the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk and Insurance Facility (SEADRIF) an ASEAN+3 initiative, is the first regional catastrophe risk facility which provides climate and disaster resilience solutions for ASEAN Member States.
Incorporated and domiciled in Singapore, SEADRIF is established as a trust which owns the SEADRIF Insurance Company. Licensed as a general insurer by MAS, the Company has operationalised multiple sovereign and parametric insurance solutions in Lao PDR, delivering timely payouts following major flood events over the years.
The facility is now scaling regionally, including planned parametric programmes with the Philippines and new regional initiatives to integrate disaster and climate insurance into public infrastructure and agricultural systems across ASEAN.