Weather Damage Insurance for Traditional Market Merchants
Reflecting the Value of Climate Crisis Response and Small Business Protection
On January 30, KB Insurance announced that its "KB Traditional Market Weather Damage Compensation Insurance" was selected as an excellent case of win-win cooperation financial new products for 2025 by the Financial Supervisory Service.
On the 29th, at the Financial Supervisory Service in Yeouido, Seoul, during the '2025 Win-Win Cooperation Financial New Product Excellence Awards' ceremony, Bonwook Koo, President of KB Insurance (right), and Chanjin Lee, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, are taking a commemorative photo. KB Insurance
The Financial Supervisory Service annually selects financial products that consider vulnerable groups in society or make a tangible contribution to stabilizing people's livelihoods, and announces them as "excellent cases of financial new products." This year's awards ceremony was held the previous day at the Financial Supervisory Service in Yeouido, Seoul.
The "KB Traditional Market Weather Damage Compensation Insurance," which was selected as an excellent case, is an index-based weather insurance product designed for traditional market stores that are vulnerable to weather fluctuations caused by the climate crisis. The product is structured so that insurance payouts are made solely based on objective weather data if certain meteorological indices-such as precipitation, maximum temperature, or minimum temperature-exceed or fall below specified thresholds. As a result, small business owners who have difficulty proving their losses can receive prompt compensation without additional damage documentation or the insurer's damage verification process. This is expected to help reduce complaints related to insurance claim assessments, a point that was highly praised.
The "KB Traditional Market Weather Damage Compensation Insurance" was recognized for its originality as the first product in the insurance industry to cover business interruption losses in traditional markets caused by weather, as well as for its innovation in enhancing consumer convenience. In November last year, it was granted the industry's longest exclusive use right of 18 months. This is the first case since the General Insurance Association revised its agreement on protecting new product development benefits, extending the maximum protection period from one year to 18 months.
In March last year, the Insurance Reform Conference of the Financial Services Commission announced future-oriented tasks, among which the promotion of index-based weather insurance to respond to the climate crisis was selected as a key initiative. It was presented as a new growth engine in response to the three major changes: population, technology, and climate.
The "KB Traditional Market Weather Damage Compensation Insurance" is operated as a group insurance product in which the traditional market merchants' association or local government acts as the policyholder, and a certain proportion of all stores join together. KB Insurance plans to further strengthen the business safety net for traditional market merchants by developing this product into a regionally customized protection model in cooperation with local governments and traditional market merchants' associations nationwide.
A representative from KB Insurance stated, "The selection of this product as an excellent case by the Financial Supervisory Service recognizes our efforts to ease the burden on traditional market merchants who have struggled to prove their losses and to provide practical support for stable business operations in response to the climate crisis. KB Insurance will continue to do its utmost to develop win-win financial products that protect financial consumers and support the socially vulnerable."
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