At a glance
- Professor Paula Jarzabkowski’s research has reshaped how governments and insurers address disaster risk, introducing new frameworks to close the global insurance protection gap.
- The research has directly informed policy and practice in Australia, the UK, Europe and North America, including terrorism and flood insurance pools and parliamentary inquiries.
- Its influence extends globally through advisory work, open‑access scholarship and media coverage, shaping thinking on resilience, risk financing and disaster recovery.
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and fires are becoming more frequent and costly across the planet. In 2023 alone, global natural catastrophes caused an estimated A$530 billion in losses, yet only about one-third was insured.
The result is a growing insurance ‘protection gap’ – where communities, governments and businesses are left exposed without adequate financial protection to support their recovery.
This challenge is compounded by other increasingly common large-scale risks, such as cyberattacks, geopolitical instability and pandemics, where traditional insurance models also struggle to respond.
The research
Research led by Professor Paula Jarzabkowski from The University of Queensland Business School set out to understand – and help close – this widening protection gap.
From 2016 to 2021, Professor Jarzabkowski and her team conducted a large-scale, qualitative study of the activities of organisations known as ‘Protection Gap Entities’ (PGEs).
PGEs provide insurance, often on a not-for-profit basis, for global disaster risks that are otherwise uninsurable. They include government-backed ‘insurance pools’, as well as other public-private arrangements designed to cover risks that fall outside commercial insurance markets.
The research study drew on:
- 545 interviews with government, industry and insurance stakeholders
- 129 participant observations
- 898 documents
- 17 PGEs operating in 49 countries, including 7 high-income countries (e.g. Australia, France) and 2 middle-income nations (e.g. Mexico, Turkey), as well as 3 multi-country risk pools in low-income regions (e.g. Africa).
The researchers examined why PGEs are created, how they operate and what enables – or constrains – their ability to reduce disaster risk in the face of climate change.
New frameworks for disaster risk and insurance
Professor Jarzabkowski and her team delivered 2 industry reports. These reports consisted of 4 key conceptual frameworks and shared language to help insurers, governments and policymakers navigate complex disaster risk environments.
These frameworks included:
- a protection gap strategic response framework
- PGE value chain positions
- an insurance resilience framework
- a PGE evolution framework.
The reports also shared best practice recommendations to help PGEs:
- balance public good goals while operating within profit-driven insurance systems
- manage trade-offs between affordability, coverage and sustainability
- identify and overcome barriers
- adapt to evolving climate and disaster risks
- strengthen collaboration with government and insurance industry stakeholders.
Why this work matters: impact on policy and practice
Since 2018, insurers, PGEs, NGOs and policymakers nationally and internationally have adopted several of Professor Jarzabkowski and her team’s frameworks.
Australia
Their research directly informed the retention of Australia’s terrorism insurance pool (the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation) under the Terrorism Insurance Act. The strategic response framework was reproduced in an appendix to the Act, which supported the 2018 legislative decision to continue providing terrorism insurance to Australian businesses.
United Kingdom
In 2019, the UK’s terrorism risk insurance pool, Pool Re, used the team’s strategic response framework to address emerging protection gaps, adding £10 billion in cover for cyber terrorism and non-damage business interruption and enabling UK businesses to continue accessing terrorism insurance.
That same year, the UK’s flood risk insurance pool, Flood Re, adopted the team’s insurance resilience framework to expand its remit by explicitly linking insurance protection with resilience-building measures.
Europe
In 2018, the Spanish PGE, Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros, distributed the team’s research findings nationally to guide public-private risk sharing approaches.
Also in 2018, the French PGE, Caisse Centrale de Reassurance, incorporated the team’s findings into its report on government pools and invited Professor Jarzabkowski to deliver a keynote at its annual national member workshop.
Advising governments on disaster recovery
The work has also led to more than 10 commissioned and contract-based projects. For example:
- In 2019, the Canadian Finance Ministry commissioned Professor Jarzabkowski and her team to examine the Canadian context and deliver a report and roundtable discussion to help evaluate ways of managing Canadian flood risk. This report informed a flood insurance pool plan currently under consideration by the Canadian government.
- In 2021, the research team worked with UK Research and Innovation and the Association of British Insurers on assessing options for managing and insuring COVID-related risks. Their findings were presented to the UK Parliament that same year, contributing to parliamentary decision-making on pandemic risk.
- In 2023, the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation engaged Professor Jarzabkowski to review insurance status and provide recommendations for the Lismore local government area following the 2022 floods. In 2024, the Member for Lismore cited these recommendations in NSW Parliament and included them in her submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry into insurers’ responses to 2022 flood claims.
Building global influence
Alongside its policy and advisory influence, the research has reached wide audiences through open-access scholarship and media coverage.
Professor Jarzabkowski’s 2023 open access book, Disaster Insurance Reimagined: Protection in a Time of Increasing Risk, has:
- been distributed to more than 1,500 individuals
- been shared at more than 52 events across 12 countries, including keynote presentations in Australia and the Netherlands
- shaped broader thinking in the field and informed major international policy reports, such as a 2025 US-based study on home insurance resilience and affordability.
Between October 2021 and November 2025, Professor Jarzabkowski’s work attracted extensive national and international media attention, earning more than 434 media mentions across 27 countriesin prestigious outlets including the Financial Times and Bloomberg.
Professor Jarzabkowski continues to share her work through invited speaking opportunities, having presented at 13 invited events since 2024 in locations spanning Canberra to Washington DC.
By reshaping how disaster risk is financed and shared by governments, insurers and communities, this research continues to influence policy, practice and resilience outcomes worldwide.
Professor Jarzabkowksi is a member of UQ Business School’s Security and Resilience Research Hub, which aims to inform policy, strengthen practice and enhance the resilience of individuals, organisations and communities facing complex and extreme challenges.
