Insurance company supporting adaptation action in small and medium size enterprises in Turin (Italy)

SMEs in Italy are highly exposed to climate-related flooding and other weather hazards but receive little institutional support for adaptation. The Italian Association of Insurance Brokers (AIBA) estimates 90% of Italian businesses that had to halt operations for more than a week due to climate events went bankrupt within a year, yet climate risk is rarely part of business risk plans and adaptation lacks dedicated national financial or fiscal instruments.

The LIFE-funded DERRIS project (2015-2018) built a public-private partnership between Turin insurers, local authorities and SMEs to transfer risk-assessment knowledge from insurers to adaptation planners and to support SMEs and industrial districts in developing adaptation plans.

In a 2016-2017 pilot in six industrial/manufacturing areas of Turin, Unipol's loss-prevention team worked with 32 SMEs (mechanical, chemical, services/trade, food and handicraft sectors) to produce Company Adaptation Action Plans (CAAPs) and an Integrated District Adaptation Plan (IDAP), and to develop the online CRAM risk-assessment tool. The partnership was later extended to 10 more Italian cities, and after the project's formal end in 2018, four further cities (including Milan) joined capitalisation activities from 2019; the CRAM tool remains online.

28 of the initial 32 Turin SMEs completed CAAPs, totalling 565 planned actions (median 20 per plan). Across the extended rollout, 128 SMEs in 10 additional cities used CRAM to finalise CAAPs; flooding was the most-addressed hazard (about 25% of measures) followed by heavy rain (about 18%). DERRIS also produced a EUR 10,000-100,000 loan instrument via Unipol Banca for SMEs to fund risk-prevention measures. Direct economic benefits and avoided losses were not quantified.

Involving trade organisations was key to engaging SMEs across cities. Availability of financial resources (loans, fiscal instruments) was identified as the main limiting factor for adaptation implementation, alongside generally low risk awareness among businesses.