Wildfires are becoming deadlier and more costly each year, with long-term impacts which continue to be felt by evacuees months after the wildfire has been extinguished. The haze caused by the wildfires in Australia in 2019/2020 is estimated to have caused between AUD12m and AUD50m worth of daily disruption in Sydney alone, affecting people's ability to work and damaging the tourism industry.

Parametric insurance has been heralded as a way to provide immediate relief, paying out a fixed sum to insureds on the occurrence of a precisely defined event – such as wind of above a certain speed in a certain location.

Off-the-shelf connected parametric insurance contracts that employ modern technology like smart contracts should help to increase the number of products in the market.

Clyde & Co is running a virtual legal hackathon between 1 July and 4 August 2020 in partnership with The Chancery Lane Project. This post is part of a series of updates posted during the hackathon on business-relevant climate initiatives and innovative solutions to some of the challenges arising from climate change.