Catastrophic risks are often characterised by a low probability, a high severity and a large number of affected individuals. Taking these specificities into account, we analyse the capacity of insurance contracts to provide coverage for those risks, independently from the market failures frequently observed in practice. On the demand side, we characterise individual preferences under which the willingness to pay for the coverage of large losses remains significant, although their occurrence probability is very small. On the supply side, the correlation between individual losses affects the insurance pricing through the insurers' cost of capital. Analysing the interaction between demand and supply yields the key determinants of insurability and of a socially optimal risk sharing strategy.

Technology adoption is crucial for the development of low income countries. This paper investigates how parametric insurance can contribute to improving access to finance, and hence to technology, for smallholder farmers. In a model with moral hazard, we show that bundling parametric insurance with loans may lower collateral requirements, thus promoting the financial inclusion of poor households. The case of agricultural input loans and weather-index insurance is studied in detail and related to bundled finance solutions recently piloted among smallholder farmers in Tanzania.