Desert Dust Storms: Insurability and Financial Solutions
Date: Tuesday, 7 April 2026
Time: 3:30 PM – 5 PM
Venue: Lecture Theatre 8 (ABS-03-LT8)
Chairperson: Asst Prof Jinggong Zhang
Abstract
How can societies financially mitigate the rising health risks of desert dust storms (DDS)? DDS are natural hazards that occur globally, with approximately half originating from the Sahara Desert. Using rural-background (RB) air-quality data from Southern Eu- rope, located far away from anthropogenic influence, we identify DDS days, and document that daily deaths from respiratory and cardiovascular causes significantly increase in both Cyprus and Italy on days with PM10 concentration levels exceed location-specific thresholds. On extreme DDS days, the impact on mortality multiplies. DDS conditions and associated losses, meet key insurability criteria. We design a novel DDS catastrophe bond, and propose that it is offered through a coalition of countries exposed to DDS, enabling risk transfer to capital markets. We price the parametric CAT bond, using the occurrence of tail DDS events registered by RB stations. Our results challenge existing EU air quality standards, as we document substantial impact on public health at PM10 levels below the current EU low risk threshold of 50 µg/m3, and inform public health and climate adaptation policy.
Link to paper : https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4925797
About the Speaker
Andreas is currently a Professor of Finance at the University of Cyprus. His current research interests include risk management, corporate finance, information transmission in financial markets, information intermediaries, compensation incentives, insurance economics and actuarial science. He has published several articles in finance journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance and Journal of Banking & Finance. He has also published extensively in insurance and actuarial journals such as Journal of Risk & Insurance, ASTIN Bulletin and North American Actuarial Journal. Several of his articles have been awarded/shortlisted for prizes. Since 2022, he also serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Risk and Insurance.
His curriculum includes academic appointments at the Insurance Risk and Finance Research Centre (Nanyang Business School, NTU, Singapore), and Manchester Business School (UK). Andreas also has significant consulting experience (US, UK, Europe) in projects related to bank risk assessment (i.e. with the European Central Bank), risk management, insurance valuation, pension valuation, and business analytics.