How the Reinsurance Industry views the current and future risk landscape
Abstract
The last decade has witnessed some of the most devastating and expensive natural disasters within the last century. Regardless of where the event occurred and what the hazard might have been, the global insurance and reinsurance industry were active participants in evaluating the events' characteristics as well as providing the financial means for rebuilding the communities affected by these events. The concept of risk transfer from one to many (spreading the risk) is at the very core of the insurers and reinsurers' business. Reinsurers' focus most of their attention on the extreme events including those caused by natural disasters. As such the reinsurance industry must be expert in understanding and quantifying the potential economic and social impact of extreme natural hazard events throughout the world whether they be in the present or possible future. To understand the global risk the reinsurance industry has invested a substantial amount of time and resources into analyzing natural hazard events on a global scale. This requires a firm understanding of the hazard (frequency and severity) and what exposure lies in harm's way (vulnerability). Through the development and use of natural hazard models, claims loss reviews, and research and development the reinsurance industry has an excellent view of the global risks. In this session we will describe how the reinsurance industry models the natural hazard risk and how we view natural hazards in the modern world and our concerns for the future. We will discuss some of the reasons why these events have become increasingly more expensive as well as discussing how we can help reduce our economic susceptibility to these extreme and unpleasant events.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFMNH42A..03C
- Keywords:
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- 4314 NATURAL HAZARDS / Mathematical and computer modeling;
- 4333 NATURAL HAZARDS / Disaster risk analysis and assessment;
- 4335 NATURAL HAZARDS / Disaster management;
- 4336 NATURAL HAZARDS / Economic impacts of disasters