• Projections of multiple climate risks to critical infrastructures are assessed. • Impacts could rise up to 10 times present damages by 2100 due to global warming alone. • Damages from heatwaves, droughts and coastal floods show the most dramatic rise. • Economic losses could be highest for the industry, transport and energy sectors. • Southern and south-eastern European countries will likely be most affected.

In many low‐income countries, agriculture is mostly rainfed and crop yield depends highly on climatic factors. Furthermore, farmers have little access to traditional crop insurance, which suffers from high information asymmetry and transaction costs. Insurances based on meteorological indices could fill this gap since they do not face such drawbacks. However, a full‐scale implementation has been slow so far.In this article, the most advanced projects that have taken place in developing countries using these types of crop insurances are described. Following this, the methodology that has been used to design such projects in order to choose the meteorological index, the indemnity schedule and the insurance premium, is described. Finally the main research issues are discussed. In particular, more research is needed on implementation, assessment of benefits, how to deal with climate change, spatial variability of weather and interactions with other hedging methods. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society