Taiwan’s Earthquake Proves Prevention Really Is the New Solution

Once in a while, a would-be major catastrophe has a less catastrophic ending than expected. While the April 2024 Taiwan earthquake still took a large toll, including claiming 16 lives, it could have been much worse. In comparison to other earthquakes of similar 7.4 magnitude, this one was significantly less deadly and less destructive. 

Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, for example, was a 7.0 magnitude and was estimated to have killed over 220,000 people, injured over 300,000, and displaced 1.3 million. When you compare this devastation to that of Taiwan’s objectively stronger earthquake, the damage seems minimal by comparison. 

The reason, according to most reports, is the earthquake-hardening measures Taiwan put in place after its last major earthquake in 1999, plus a bit of luck. The 921 Earthquake, as it’s known because of its September 21, 1999, occurrence, killed around 2,400 people, injured 10,000, and left 100,000 without homes. In sharp contrast, the April 3, 2024, earthquake took only 13 lives (or 16, according to some sources) and the property damage estimates have even been downgraded from original estimates of $5 billion to $8 billion to a mere $500 million to $1 billion.  

“Taiwan’s decades of experience in building resilience against earthquakes into its regulations, structures, and society shielded its nearly 24 million residents from the worst effects of catastrophe.” Source: https://thediplomat.com/2024/04/taiwans-earthquake-resilience-lessons-for-a-cross-strait-conflict

Taiwan’s 921 earthquake

To understand the current situation, we have to look back to 1999, when a devastating earthquake last hit Taiwan. Unlike today, Taiwan’s preparedness and disaster response were quite lacking: a fact often used to explain the extreme property destruction and death toll. 

Why the 1999 Taiwan earthquake was so disastrous 

According to The Journal of Acute Medicine article, “Examining the Disaster Response Twenty Years After the 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake,” Taiwan didn’t have an established disaster medical assistance team, an urban search and rescue team, or an incident command system. Lacking these official resources meant the government’s response to the earthquake was chaotic and scattered.

And it wasn’t just a lack of critical personnel and procedures that made Taiwan’s 1999 earthquake so deadly and destructive. The small island nation’s building codes and structural regulations weren’t up to the task of ensuring buildings could withstand an earthquake of this magnitude.

How the 1999 Taiwan earthquake spurred change

The 1999 earthquake was a wakeup call for Taiwanese government officials. After seeing the poor, uncoordinated, and insufficient disaster response, Taiwan’s government began taking steps to prevent a repeat of the catastrophe in the future. 

Some of these steps included: 

• Establishing the country’s first urban search and rescue (USAR) team
• Creating a disaster medical assistance team (DMAT) 
• Opening six regional emergency medical operation centers (REMOCS) across the country
• Creating government organizations to coordinate disaster responses 
• Improving building codes to require more resilient buildings, including taking a location’s seismic activity into account when determining the level of safety requirements 
• Constantly adding to and evolving building codes over time to continuously improve safety standards
• Retrofitting older buildings to meet modern requirements
• Conducting ongoing training and drills for both first responders and the general public  
• Creating a system of fines and penalties for construction companies that don’t meet the country’s stringent earthquake-hardening standards

With these new developments, and more, Taiwan hoped it’d be better prepared to face the next major earthquake. 

“Sept. 21 is now a designated day for Taiwan-wide disaster drills and on this day mock alert messages for disasters such as earthquake and tsunami are sent to people’s mobile phones, and schools around the island stage evacuation drills.” Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/resilient-taiwan-responded-fast-earthquake-after-years-honing-skills-2024-04-04/

Fortunately, all the hard work and time-and-money investments paid off when the country experienced its worst earthquake since 1999 in April of 2024. 

It’s important to note that Taiwan’s earthquake resiliency efforts weren’t “one and done.” Like any successful public health or safety initiative, ‌real success comes from continuing to improve and learning lessons from less-ideal outcomes. For Taiwan, this included not just the 1999 earthquake, but others since then, such as one in 2018 that killed seven people and prompted even more governmental process improvements. 

Prevention and preparedness prove effective

On the morning of April 3, 2024, Taiwan once again experienced a massive earthquake. This time, the 7.4 magnitude quake occurred about 18 kilometers from the city of Hualien on the island’s east coast. Unlike 1999, however, Taiwan now boasts a reputation for being one of the most earthquake-ready places in the world, with a level of preparedness not typically seen. 

Experts from across the world have commended Taiwan on the improvements it made over the last 25 years, that paid off in a real way during its most recent seismic event. Even though some buildings were still damaged and destroyed, and some lives were still lost, the human and property toll was much lower than anyone expected for an earthquake of that magnitude. 

As for insurance losses, even those are turning out to be lower than expected. In the days just after the earthquake, CoreLogic Inc., a data and analytics company that predicts insurance and reinsurance losses, estimated Taiwan would incur between $5 billion and $8 billion in insured losses. Just a week later, CoreLogic revised its estimate (down!) to only between a half billion and $1 billion of losses. 

Perhaps most impressive was the speed at which Taiwan’s government and communities got back to business as usual after what could have been a disaster that shut the country down for weeks or months. Just a couple of days following the quake, CNN reported that stores and restaurants were open and serving customers like nothing had happened. 

Prevention is key to reducing risk

We’ve been saying it for some time: Prevention is the new solution. No one should understand this concept better than those in the insurance industry, where we witness firsthand how losses are becoming more and more expensive each year, and how taking preventive, risk-minimizing efforts is one of the best ways to reduce losses (before they happen!).  

While no one can remove a hundred percent of all risks, there’s plenty that insurers, governments, and even consumers can do to increase their chances of making it through a disaster with minimal damage. 

Taiwan’s success demonstrates the effectiveness of a combined bottom-up and top-down approach to disaster prevention and mitigation. From the top, the government created and enforced strict new building requirements, including retrofitting older buildings to meet new codes. From the bottom, public education campaigns taught the population how to respond, where to go, and what to do and not do in case of an earthquake. Combined, these methods proved to work when the strongest earthquake since 1999 shook Taiwan and, instead of chaos and massive destruction, the outcome was efficient, coordinated, and minimally damaging – all things considered. 

While insurance compliance isn’t a life-or-death situation like an earthquake, it can still have some serious consequences for those who don’t make compliance a priority. In fact, it can even have a negative impact on businesses that do make it a priority, but at the expense of growth and efficiency. 

If you’re looking for a solution that saves money, reduces risk, and creates an unparalleled employee and producer experience, see how AgentSync can help.

About AgentSync

AgentSync builds modern insurance infrastructure that connects carriers, agencies, MGAs, and producers. With customer-centric design, seamless APIs, automation, and unparalleled service, AgentSync’s solutions provide data intelligence and streamlined onboarding and compliance management processes that reduce costs, increase efficiency, and get producers ready to sell in hours instead of weeks. Founded in 2018 by Niranjan “Niji” Sabharwal and Jenn Knight, and headquartered in Denver, CO, AgentSync has been recognized as one of Denver’s Best Places to Work, a Forbes Magazine Cloud 100 Rising Star, and as an Insurtech Insights Future 50 winner, and was ranked 65 in Forbes – America’s Best Startup Employers 2023. To learn more, visit www.agentsync.io.