There is limited experience with institutions and governance arrangements that address the uncertain and dynamic effects of climate change on human systems. This paper therefore looks for lessons from potential analogues to climate change that might inform how to design and implement institutions of a more dynamic kind. The analogues chosen were pandemics, biosecurity threat, earthquakes, financial supervision, insurance, superannuation, and surgical risk management. In-depth interviews and documentary evidence indicates that the analogues that address sudden threats suffer from the same static constraints evident in climate change risk management regimes and from short-term focus. On the other hand institutions that anticipate crises that develop more slowly or that change over time, have empirical relevance for managing climate risk. I found that the most effective mechanisms and potentially relevant lessons for dealing with uncertainty and dynamic change exist where the community has a high expectation of personal ‘safety' and trust, or where there are strong societal norms about ‘protection' of groups in society like the elderly for example. These were found in the procedures and processes around surgical settings and the institutional arrangements for the NZSuperfund. These analogues address procedural and intuitive human responses, and changing demographics and future risk respectively, reinforced by measures that have built-in redundancy and professional regulatory regimes. The uptake of current adaptive management institutions has been slow and contested, therefore these analogues by embedding human behaviour and dynamic change characteristics are relevant for the design of institutions that can accommodate changing climate risk.