New Extreme Heat Insurance Accelerator will develop and deliver parametric insurance for extreme heat, combining HERA’s women-centered extreme heat and inclusive insurance expertise with SEADRIF’s experience as a regional development insurer working across ASEAN
BANGKOK, October 9, 2026 — HERA (Heat Resilience Action) and the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF) Insurance Company announced a new partnership to develop insurance solutions for extreme heat across the region.
An estimated 100 million informal women workers across Southeast Asia live and work in extreme heat, often with limited access to social or financial protection. For most, extreme heat means lost income, health problems, higher debt, and difficult choices between protecting their wellbeing and supporting their families.
As heat intensifies under a changing climate, the need for practical protection is becoming increasingly urgent, something which this year's Super El Niño shows only too clearly.
The HERA-SEADRIF partnership establishes an Extreme Heat Insurance Accelerator that will build a pipeline of heat risk solutions and create pathways to replicate and scale effective risk transfer across communities and productive sectors within SEADRIF member countries.
The Accelerator combines HERA’s years of innovation and delivery of women-centered extreme heat insurance through “HERInsura,” with SEADRIF’s experience as a regional development insurer designing and placing parametric disaster insurance for ASEAN governments and partners.
“SEADRIF’s role is to work with our member countries to strengthen financial resilience as climate and disaster risks evolve,” said Benedikt Signer, CEO of the SEADRIF Insurance Company. “Extreme heat is a critical and growing dimension of that risk. Our partnership with HERA will help us strengthen the knowledge and capacity needed to understand heat impacts across the region and provide innovative products that can meet the evolving needs of our members.”
“We need to move urgently from understanding extreme heat to protecting people from its impacts,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, CEO of HERA. “With an estimated 100 million informal women workers across Southeast Asia living and working in extreme heat, the need for protective solutions is profound. Together with SEADRIF, we can co-create products that protect people and economies across a hotter Southeast Asia.”
A women-centered design principle will guide the Accelerator, ensuring that women’s experiences as workers, entrepreneurs, caregivers, and community leaders inform how heat impacts are understood and products are designed.
“Women informal workers in Thailand are disproportionately impacted by extreme heat but they themselves are head of household and leaders and are already adapting their lives and livelihoods around extreme heat,” said Siriporn (Biew) Rathie, Thailand Country Director at HERA. “Our 'Weathering Change' report found that extreme heat can cut women’s earnings by as much as 50 percent. We need solutions designed around what women are experiencing on the ground—solutions that protect their health, income, and dignity.”
“Existing insurance products are not designed for the ways heat affects people’s health, incomes and livelihoods,” said Lisa Yu, Head of Product at SEADRIF Insurance Company. “This is exactly the product gap that needs to be closed. Closing that gap requires new product innovations that are practical, affordable and grounded in the realities women in communities face. Through this Accelerator, we can develop and test solutions that offer meaningful protection across ASEAN.”
Together, HERA and SEADRIF will help turn lived experience and heat risk intelligence into practical financial protection—building fit-for-purpose, affordable heat insurance that can be replicated and scaled across Southeast Asia.
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About HERA
HERA (Heat Resilience Action) is a global non-profit focused on solutions that protect that health, income, and dignity of women on the frontlines of extreme heat.
HERA partners with local organizations, bringing expertise, capacity and resources to co-design and deliver practical, scalable solutions for a hotter world.
Learn more at www.heranow.org Media contact: Daniel Ruge, daniel@heranow.org
About SEADRIF: Taking the Crisis Out of Disasters
SEADRIF is a regional platform established and owned by ASEAN+3 countries to strengthen disaster and climate resilience through pre-arranged financial protection and advisory support. It provides access to rapid and predictable funding when shocks occur, enabling governments to better manage disaster-related costs.
Through its regulated insurance company set up in Singapore, SEADRIF blends public and private capital to expand access to new forms of development insurance. Working closely with
member countries, it co-designs solutions that are fit for purpose and scales them across sectors, geographies, and perils—helping protect people, economies, and futures across Southeast Asia. For inquiries, please email: contact@seadrifinsurance.com.