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      Insurance as maladaptation: Resilience and the "business as usual' paradox

      O'Hare, Paul; White, Iain; Connelly, Angela
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      OHare et al_Insurance as maladaptation.pdf
      Accepted version, 709.5Kb
      DOI
       10.1177/0263774X15602022
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      O’Hare, P., White, I., & Connelly, A. (2016). Insurance as maladaptation: Resilience and the "business as usual’ paradox. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 34(6), 1175–1193. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263774X15602022
      Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/13906
      Abstract
      Insurance and compensation are cited as critical elements of resilience to natural and non-natural hazards alike. As a strategy of risk management, it emphasises peace of mind, financial recompense and the swift restoration of a ‘business as usual’ status for civil, social and commercial life. Yet despite the contribution of insurance to risk management, the synergies with progressive or adaptive articulations of resilience are not sufficiently explicated. This paper explores the fundamental contradictions of insurance as a form of resilience through a study of flood risk management. It demonstrates how insurance regimes serve to structurally embed risky behaviour and inhibit change after detrimental events. As such, transformative interpretations of resilience conflict with the long-standing principles and operational norms of insurance that privilege normality. The paper concludes that, despite its currency within resilience discourses, insurance is maladaptive and that insurance regimes reinforce exposure and vulnerability through underwriting a return to the ‘status-quo’ rather than enabling adaptive behaviour.
      Date
      2016
      Type
      Journal Article
      Publisher
      Sage Publications Ltd
      Rights
      This is an author’s accepted version of an article published in the journal: Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy. © 2015 the authors.
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      • Arts and Social Sciences Papers [1423]
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