International pre-arranged disaster financing climbed to a record $9.4 bn, as governments and development institutions leaned harder on mechanisms that release funds automatically when crises hit.
The data comes from The State of Pre-Arranged Financing for Disasters 2025, published by the Centre for Disaster Protection, which tracks global flows of catastrophe risk finance and where the money actually lands.
According to the report, proactive disaster finance expanded sharply just as aid budgets tightened and climate shocks intensified.
Yet access remains uneven. Low-income countries and fragile and conflict-affected states together received under 7% of total international pre-arranged financing in 2024. That’s despite carrying some of the highest exposure to climate and disaster risk.
According to Beinsure analysts, the imbalance hasn’t narrowed. If anything, it’s calcified.
Pre-arranged financing covers crisis funding agreed in advance and released once predefined triggers are met. The logic is speed. Secure capital before disaster, respond faster after.
Governments can limit economic damage, households get support sooner, businesses survive. In theory.
In practice, payouts from these mechanisms more than doubled in 2024, reaching $879 mn. That reversed the downward trend seen after the Covid-19 spike in 2020.
The bulk of those payouts came through catastrophe deferred drawdown options provided by the World Bank.
Support from development partners grew more slowly. Funding rose 6% in 2022-2023 to $889 mn, about 1.2% of total crisis financing.
Even with that increase, allocations to low-income countries stayed thin, while exposure to climate hazards and disaster losses kept rising. No mystery there.
Now in its third year, the report stitches together data that used to sit in silos or not exist publicly at all. Inputs span multilateral development banks, regional risk pools, and humanitarian agencies.
The result is a clearer view of how much pre-arranged finance is deployed, where it flows, and where it doesn’t.
The surge in 2024 was driven mainly by contingent lending, led by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Regional risk pools and catastrophe bonds also continued to expand coverage, though not evenly across regions.
Colin Bruce, board member and co-chair of the Centre for Disaster Protection, said the headline number masks structural weaknesses. He noted that while pre-arranged financing reached an all-time high, low-income and fragile states still sit at the back of the queue.
More preparation support is needed for communities most exposed to crisis risk, he said. The message wasn’t subtle.
Bruce pointed to recent disasters as proof that timing matters. When funding is ready before shocks hit, planning improves and recovery accelerates.
Families and businesses rebound faster. Without it, delays compound losses. We’ve seen this movie before.
Kimberly Gire, also a board member and co-chair at the centre, said the report offers the most complete global picture yet of how pre-arranged financing works on the ground. She acknowledged momentum behind anticipatory disaster finance, but said the gaps are now impossible to ignore.
Progress, she argued, depends on coordinated action by governments, donors, and financial institutions.
The centre warned that without broader reach, countries most exposed to climate shocks risk falling further behind. Growth alone won’t fix that.
Michèle Plichta, senior researcher at the centre and lead author of the report, said consolidating fragmented data was a necessary step toward accountability.
Better visibility, she argued, is essential if disaster finance is meant to be timely, equitable, and usable when crises hit.
