Should there be an insurance policy for Hawaii’s reefs?

The Nature Conservancy, a global conservation nonprofit, thinks so, especially after a study earlier this year reported that Hawaii’s reefs provide more than $835 million in flood protection. The reefs act as submerged breakwaters, according to the study, and dissipate up to 97% of a wave’s energy offshore, playing an essential role in protecting coastlines.

Now, thanks to a $1 million grant from the Bank of America, the Nature Conservancy’s scientists can conduct a feasibility study to see whether coral reef insurance would make sense in Hawaii and Florida as well as other parts of the world.

Hawaii would not be the first, however, to implement a coral reef insurance policy.

Earlier this summer the state government of Quintana Roo in Mexico announced the first-ever insurance policy for a popular stretch of reefs off of Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

That insurance policy, which is funded by fees paid by beachfront property owners, as well as private and public sources, goes toward both the maintenance of coral reefs to keep them as healthy as possible, as well as their restoration following severe storms.

“That is the model we would want to follow in Hawaii,” said Kim Hum, the Nature Conservancy’s marine program director. “If our reef is worth $836 million, that’s a very valuable asset, and we want to manage it and protect it.”

The study, which should be completed in about a year, will answer questions such as who would pay for it, what the cost of restoring and repairing a reef after a natural disaster would be, where in the state it would make the most sense and whether insurance companies would be willing to provide a policy at a sensible price point, she said.

“We’ve talked with state and federal government partners, folks in the tourism industry, resorts and some financial institutions and insurance companies,” said Hum. “Across the board there’s strong interest in understanding how we may be able to apply this tool in Hawaii.”

Part of the study would examine whether Hawaii could buy an insurance policy against coral bleaching or massive amounts of sediment resulting from a rainstorm.

The Nature Conservancy said the Mexican reef insurance policy — the result of efforts dating back to 2014 — was possible with the help of another $1 million offered by the Bank of America in 2016 that funded a feasibility study. Since 2012 the bank has provided $3.5 million in grant funding to the nonprofit.

“TNC and its partners proved that insuring coral reefs was possible in Mexico,” said Mark Way, the Nature Conservancy’s director of global coastal risk and resilience, in a news release. “Now, we are ready to scale this work. The Nature Conservancy is very grateful to the Bank of America Charitable Foundation for its vital, early stage support of our efforts to produce market-driven, nature-based solutions for coastal resilience.”

In a study released earlier this year by the Nature Conservancy, U.S. Geological Survey and University of California, Santa Cruz, researchers estimated reefs across the U.S. provide more than $1.8 billion in flood protection annually, including about $12 million on Kauai, $395 million on Oahu, $377 million on Maui and $51 million on Hawaii island.

At the same time, coral reefs around the world face multiple threats.

Due to higher-than-average ocean temperatures, coral reef scientists are observing evidence of severe coral bleaching as earlier predicted around various Hawaiian Isles this summer, which may possibly be worse than the last marine heat wave in 2015.