Climate Risk and the Collapse of Traditional Insurance Markets

Video

Climate Risks Are Redrawing the Insurance Map

Robin Castelli of Orange Ridge Capital warns that outdated insurance models and rising climate risks are driving insurers out of vulnerable areas. As some regions become uninsurable, systemic risk grows, forcing policymakers and insurers to rethink coverage, pricing, and long-term viability.

Jun 24, 2025

Cino Robin Castelli, Partner & Head of Transition Finance Investment, Orange Ridge Capital

Tags: Insurance ESG and Climate Risk

The views and opinions expressed in this content are those of the thought leader as an individual and are not attributed to CeFPro or any other organization

In this thought-provoking discussion, Robin Castelli explores the growing tension between climate change, risk modeling, and the sustainability of insurance markets.

As acute and chronic physical climate risks increase—manifesting in more frequent wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding—insurance providers are either dramatically raising premiums or exiting high-risk markets entirely. These shifts are already evident in states like California and Florida, where major insurers are retreating, and state-backed insurers of last resort are only offering short-term relief.

This evolving reality presents a looming systemic risk. As properties become uninsurable, the value of mortgages tied to them could collapse, threatening the financial system. Compounding the issue is the use of outdated catastrophe models based on historical weather patterns, which fail to account for the shifting dynamics of a warming world. Castelli advocates for models grounded in forward-looking climate science and policy interventions that support both insurers and residents in exposed areas.

The future of insurability may hinge on our ability to reconcile accurate climate modeling with equitable long-term planning.

Cino Robin Castelli Bio

Robin Castelli is currently the Head of Transition Finance Investment at Orange Ridge Capital, a global Private Equity firm focused on generation of attractive investment returns from high-quality sustainable real assets such as timberland, farmland, agriculture, infrastructure, real estate, and renewable energy in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia. He is located in New York in the United States and was the Global head of Climate Transition Risk Model Development at Citi in 2022 and 2023, managing the entire Wholesale Credit Portfolio as well as the Commercial Real Estate Portfolio for Climate Risk, totaling over $730 Billion, across 140+ countries and more than 20,000 companies (one of the three largest portfolios in the world for Climate). Prior to this position, Robin was the Business Unit Manager for Enterprise Risk Management ($250 Million in budget and 450 full time employees), and the Business Unit Manager and Chief Strategy Officer for Quantitative Risk and Stress Testing ($150 Million in budget and 700 FTE), the division of Risk tasked with developing all the quantitative models used for Market Risk, Counterparty Risk, Wholesale Credit, Retail Credit, and Stress Testing. Robin is also co-founder and former Executive VP for Business Development of Macro USA, in the field of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV), and prior to that, co-founder, CEO and president of Macroswiss SA (also in the UGV field). In his two entrepreneurial forays, between 1999 and 2015, he raised over $30 million in debt and equity, setup four corporate locations in Europe (CH), LatAm (Chile) and USA (CA), hired over 70 STEM and technical specialists and grew both companies to be #3 in the world for the defense Unmanned Ground Vehicle sector. Robin holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree in Molecular Biology, summa cum laude, from Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca and is a frequent lecturer on Climate and Transition finance at prestigious universities and conferences around the world such as Columbia, Bocconi, and the Stevens Institute of Technology, amongst others. Robin is also the Author of “Quantitative Methods for ESG Finance” by Wiley (2022) and “Principles of Transition Finance Investment - Finding Alpha in a World Adapting to Climate Change” by Wiley (2025) and holds seven international technology patents in the field of mining, robotics, automation, and surveillance. He is a native speaker in three languages (Italian, English, Spanish) and conversational in French.