20 March, 2026

Can you insure a wave? In El Salvador, the answer is now, surprisingly, yes.

Along the country’s Pacific coast, surfing supports up to 70% of local income, underpinning businesses from guesthouses to restaurants. But climate change‑driven shifts in rainfall and storm patterns are increasingly disrupting wave conditions. And when the surf disappears, so do visitors, with immediate economic impact on communities. 

To address this, the Save The Waves Coalition, in partnership with insurers, is piloting a parametric insurance model. Instead of relying on traditional claims assessments, pay-outs are triggered automatically when rainfall or storm thresholds are exceeded. The goal is simple: deliver funds quickly to coastal communities when tourism is interrupted. 

The approach is interesting not just because of the way it delivers fast payment without process, but also because the Save the Waves coalition hopes that in the future it will refine the model to also include a dedicated payment for ecosystem reconstruction. This is another important strand of the organisation’s work, as the mangroves and other ecosystem features stabilise coastlines, reduce flood impacts, and help maintain the environmental conditions that make surf tourism possible in the first place. In this way, insurance becomes a tool for resilience, as well as recovery, and the model begins to connect three areas often considered separately: climate risk, economic stability, and ecosystem health. 

For insurers, it also signals a broader shift. As climate impacts intensify, interest is growing in models that move beyond compensating loss to actively reducing it. In places where livelihoods and nature are deeply intertwined, protecting one increasingly depends on investing in the other.

By Siri Venkatesh