Adapting to the heat: extreme-ready, business-steady design

“Extreme heat is changing how cities and companies work,” says Lena Fuldauer, Head of Resilience and Business Development at Allianz Risk Consulting. “Nighttime temperatures are rising faster than daytime peaks, giving buildings and people less chance to cool. High humidity pushes the human body toward dangerous thresholds, raising error rates and shortening safe working hours.”

For businesses, this shows up quickly: heat-sensitive manufacturing and logistics run at reduced line rates; cold chains face higher spoilage; roads and rails buckle, delaying deliveries and commutes.

Digital operations feel the strain too. As cooling loads surge, data centers demand more water and power, increasing the risk of cascading outages. Public services are exposed as well: stressed grids and water systems create systemic impacts on the economy, affecting hospitals, transit networks, and emergency response. Compound events are also more common: heat arrives with drought, wildfire smoke, or grid stress.

For insurers, this breaks many old assumptions: that hazards are stationary, that correlations stay stable, and that loss patterns follow more predictable tails. Losses can now appear in new places and seasons where firms and cities are underprepared.

“Clients often ask, ‘If we don’t know exactly what will happen, how do we plan?’” says Fuldauer. “The answer is robust decision-making: invest in low-regret measures that make sense now and across many futures and deliver co-benefits.”

Insurers are starting to adapt but are still catching up to the full risks of extreme heat. Leading carriers are using updated climate-conditioned catastrophe and heat-stress models to reflect non-stationary hazards, and supervisors are encouraging stress tests that include compound events. At the same time, more insurers are using parametric and continuity-focused covers and pairing them with risk-engineering guidance on cooling, shading and safe work–rest practices — but coverage and maturity still vary widely by market.

The industry is also working to understand how humidity and nighttime heat affect productivity and claims. This includes how to define non-damage business interruption triggers and tracking how risks connect across supply chains and utilities. The overall push is toward prevention, proven adaptation measures and stronger data. However, progress still looks very different from one market and line of business to another.

Fuldauer says that Allianz Commercial is building the capability to help clients identify and manage heat-amplified risks, with a focus on business continuity and practical steps.

Allianz Commercial’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience Services (CAReS) platform enables companies to screen their assets — including owned sites, suppliers, and investments — against multiple climate perils across several time horizons (today, 2030, 2050, 2080). It includes heat metrics such as the number of days above 35°C and 40°C.

They pair this with engineering advice. For heat, recommendations might include shading, building envelopes, ventilation, critical-cooling upkeep, water resilience and safe work–rest protocols. The focus is on continuity: early warnings, clear operational thresholds, and playbooks so teams can shift schedules, pre-cool and pre-position resources. 

Allianz Commercial is developing methodologies to translate heat metrics into site-specific operational triggers — for example, converting temperature and humidity thresholds into allowable work time — to help managers justify adaptation investments.

Heat risk will increase in the future. But not every solution needs a 2050 forecast. 

“Our focus now is to make the risk visible, support continuity, and help clients prioritize the best no-regret actions, those that make sense now and under different future scenarios,” Fuldauer notes.

On-site, these could include cool roofs and reflective facades, external shading, improved ventilation, night flushing, and insulation around hot basements. They could consist of backing up critical cooling, tightening water systems, adding trees and shade structures, using cooler pavements, and creating covered walkways to keep outdoor workflows moving.

Such steps can help reduce slowdowns, outages, and spoilage now — and deliver comfort, health and energy savings over time.

Choose an element

Choose an element

Choose an element

Choose an element

Choose an element

635 results

Apr 28, 2026 | Interview, Artificial Intelligence

A strong brand serves as a trusted signal for people

Bernd Heinemann, Allianz SE, shares how AI reshapes customer decision making and what trusted brands must deliver in complex journeys like insurance.

Apr 23, 2026 | Media release, Strategy & Investments

AllianzGI acquires a 51% stake in German battery storage platform GESI

Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) announced today that it has acquired a 51 percent stake in battery storage platform Green Energy Storage Initiative (GESI) on behalf of Allianz insurance companies.

Apr 22, 2026 | Mergers & Acquisitions, Media release

Jio Financial Services and Allianz to form 50:50 primary insurance joint venture

Jio Financial Services Limited (JFSL) and Allianz Group (Allianz), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Allianz Europe B.V., today entered into a binding agreement to form a 50:50 primary insurance joint venture (JV) – covering general insurance and health insurance – to serve the rapidly expanding Indian insurance sector.

Apr 17, 2026 | Climate Change, Natural Disasters, Statement, Sustainability, Property & Casualty

Keeping Europe insurable and inhabitable

The rising economic costs of natural disasters are putting the affordability and viability of insurance – as well as the habitability of Europe – at risk. In a byline for the March 2026 edition of The Eurofi Magazine, Group Head of Global P&C Matthias Trüstedt discusses the challenges Europe is facing in adapting its changing climate.

Apr 08, 2026 | Reports & studies

Business as unusual: Exporters adapt to geopolitical shocks

The conflict between the US and Iran has thrown a fresh layer of uncertainty onto an already fragile global trade landscape. According to the Allianz Trade Global Survey for 2026, which gathered insights from 6,000 companies across 13 countries, businesses are now grappling with increased tariffs, weakened demand, and soaring energy costs in addition to uncertainty in the Middle East.

635 results

The Allianz Group is one of the world’s leading insurers and asset managers, active in almost 70 countries and serving around 97 million private and corporate customers*. Our customers benefit from a broad range of personal and corporate insurance services, ranging from property, life and health insurance to assistance services to credit insurance and global business insurance. Recognized for the seventh consecutive year as the number one global insurance brand in Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2025 ranking, Allianz’s success is built on technology-enabled customer centricity – providing peace of mind, protection, and prevention for our customers and strengthening the resilience of individuals, communities, and societies. We are one of the world’s largest investors, managing around 764 billion euros** on behalf of our insurance customers. Furthermore, our asset managers PIMCO and Allianz Global Investors manage about 2.0 trillion euros** of third-party assets. Thanks to our systematic integration of environmental and social criteria in our business processes and investment decisions, Allianz received an MSCI ESG Rating of AAA (as of March 2026). In 2025, our 156,000 dedicated employees achieved a total business volume of 186.9 billion euros and an operating profit of 17.4 billion euros for our shareholders.

* Customer count reflects Allianz customers in consolidated entities that are part of the customer reporting scope only.

** As of December 31, 2025.

As with all content published on this site, these statements are subject to our cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements: