Mandatory earthquake insurance pool in Turkey, created after the 1999 quake to pool residential seismic risk.
The Turkish catastrophe insurance pool, known by the acronym TCIP or its local name DASK, is a mandatory earthquake insurance scheme for residential buildings, created after the devastating 1999 earthquake. It pools seismic risk nationally, offers standardised cover at an affordable price and relies heavily on international reinsurance to absorb peak risk. Its aim is to reduce the state's dependence on emergency funding after earthquakes by generalising basic cover. The major earthquakes that struck Turkey in 2023 tested the scheme and revealed the limits of its penetration rate, with part of the building stock remaining uninsured or non-compliant. For reinsurance, the TCIP is a significant buyer of earthquake capacity and an example of public-private partnership on a geographically concentrated catastrophe risk.
During the 2023 earthquakes, the TCIP indemnified covered homes, but the low uptake rate in some areas limited the scheme's protective effect.
TCIP, DASK, pool turc d'assurance séisme