The insurance industry has the expertise and resources to work with governments and aid agencies to help countries prepare effectively for disasters, says Sir Nicholas Young, chief executive of the Red Cross.

Sir Nicolas was the keynote speaker on Tuesday at the Bermuda Captive Conference 2006 at the Fairmont Southampton. ?We all need to invest more time, effort and money to help countries prepare effectively for disasters ? both at the national and community level,? Sir Nicolas said.

?In the insurance industry you have the expertise, experience and resources to work with governments and with the aid agencies to do this.

?Some of you are already doing so, and I urge you to continue. In the Red Cross, we depend on your generosity and support for all that we do.

?Our job, in the Red Cross and the insurance industry, though in different ways and in different contexts, is to try and put some of this right.?

?Of course there are differences. You work usually with the insured, I work in the Red Cross usually with the uninsured. You try and compensate, replace, I try just to feed and provide temporary shelter.?

But the Red Cross? role is always challenged by lack of funds and magnitude of need, he added.

?You perhaps can replenish your reserves by increasing future premiums. In the Red Cross, we have to raise what we can for each disaster as it happens and hope that it will be enough. It usually isn?t.?

The focus is on rebuilding shattered lives, Sir Nicholas told those gathered.

There are few sights more devastating and affecting than that of a big city brought to its knees by a conflict or disaster.

?Whether it?s Bande Aceh or New Orleans, Baghdad or Beirut, Bam in Iran or Balahot in Kashmir, the same sense of desolation pervades the landscape, the same scenes of hopeless people digging in the ruins or poking about in the mud offend the senses.?

Sir Nicholas? work has taken him to scenes of unspeakable devastation.

?In five years as CEO of the Red Cross in the UK, I have visited most of these disaster sites soon after they were hit. Every time I come away with the same sense of outrage that more could not be done to help quicker, the same determination to do better next time.?

In all these places, despite this horrors they have seen, slowly life will return, however. ?People start to clean the rubble, small stalls with a few oranges or some biscuits will be set up by the side of the road, a child peeps out from the doorway of a tent, a Red Cross truck unloads a precious cargo of rice,? he said.