Abstract

This monograph presents a summary of the importance for the State of having a public policy of protection or financial management of risk from the perspective of disasters. Reference is made to the legal and fiscal responsibility, to the obligations and contingent liabilities that represent, implicitly, disasters for the State. And, also, reference is made to the implications of not having a well-defined “ex ante” policy from the financial point of view for a country prone to disasters of different kinds and, in general, against catastrophic risk. A succint description of the Disaster Deficit Index, IDD, is then made, whuch provides macroeconomic and financial authorities with access, in appropriate terms, to relevant information on disaster risk at the national or subnational level. This indicator allows to dimension the fiscal exposure and the potential deficit - which are contingent liabilities - of the country in a simple way and to identify and propose possible policies and effective actions of financial protection of the State. Likewise, it shows the impact caused by recurrent minor disasters that cause a significant social and environmental risk in the countries. Finally, the basic concepts about the traditional role of the insurance and reinsurance industry and other financial schemes used or that could be explored to integrate them into the integral risk management are presented.