News Alert
Willis Research Network to Address American Geophysical Union
London, 06 September, 2010--Rowan Douglas, Chairman of the Willis Research Network, will address the 2010 American Geophyscial Union convention in San Francisco in December. The subject of Douglas's speech, 'Connecting Capital and Catastrophe in a Modelled World - How re/insurance and public science interact to manage risk for societal benefit', will offer improved ways of managing and sharing the impacts and costs of extreme natural events via public and private mechanisms.
"Through its financial obligations to exposed populations, the international insurance and reinsurance sector is directly affected by the frequency, severity and impact of extreme events," said Douglas. "In many jurisdictions insurance contracts are regulated to tolerate the maximum probable loss events which are expected at 1 in 200 year return periods. This risk tolerance requirement renders re/insurers to undertake distinctive risk analysis among financial sector institutions."
Driving the need for more collaboration between public and private sector is the fact that existing claims records are insufficient on their own to evaluate future potential losses. As a result, the last two decades have seen a significant sub-sector of the re/insurance industry emerge, known as catastrophe risk modelling. By developing increasingly robust analysis of hazards, exposures, vulnerabilities and impacts, the re/insurance sector has become more resilient to natural catastrophes.
In recent years there has been an accelerated and deepening interaction between the re/insurance sector and public science across natural hazards risk research. The medium of modelling is providing a common vehicle for science and industry communities to collaborate, with new supply chains emerging from blue sky public science, through to applied research and operation modelling.
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