Insuring homes against extreme weather events: a systematic review of the research

Home insurance for extreme weather events is a significant security mechanism not only for individual households but for global finance. As extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, home insurance has been identified by governments as a critical tool for climate adaptation and disaster resilience. However, the growing research literature on the interactions between household insurance and extreme climatic events has not previously been systematically reviewed. In this paper, we analyse 175 original peer-reviewed empirical research papers on this subject, published between 2009 and 2018. We identify areas of research focus, themes, spatial and temporal patterns, and knowledge gaps, and examine policy implications of these findings. We find that an overall focus on flood insurance leaves unanswered questions about the different insurantial challenges posed by storms and wildfire. We suggest existing technocratic and calculative insurance narratives obscure the political and moral assumptions embedded within them, and that these assumptions warrant further investigation in the context of socially legitimate insurance against the impact of extreme weather events.