Catastrophe Bonds - Would you bet on a disaster?

Extreme weather keeps getting more extreme. Once-in-a-century flooding is starting to feel routine here, while wildfires and major disasters devastate communities around the world. The Atlantic hurricane season is just weeks away and the financial stakes are about to get very real. The Earthquake Commission covers some disaster damage in New Zealand, but someone still has to pay for the rest. That's where catastrophe bonds come in. They're a strange financial product where investors make money betting on whether disaster will strike. Jeff Guo is a host of NPR's Planet Money, and he explains how catastrophe bonds work, why they're spreading, and what it means when climate risk becomes an investment. [picture id="4JOP05Z_jeff_guo_jpeg" crop="16x10" layout="full"]