April 2018

In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey dumped some 30 trillion gallons of water over the Houston, TX, area. How much water is that? What were Harvey's impacts? How many homeowners with flooded homes had flood insurance? What can be done?

When Tropical Cyclone Kelvin hit Western Australia in February and delivered heavy rainfall to the Kimberley coast it thrust an unfamiliar term into the headlines—"the brown ocean effect."

Each year, farmers face myriad potential perils to their crops: drought, waterlogging, frost, and hail to name a few. What can be done to mitigate crop losses?

One of a community's best defenses against natural perils in general, and hurricanes in particular, is making sure that strong building codes are adopted and well-enforced.

Does it make more sense for (re)insurers to build their own proprietary system to solve a problem or purchase a third- party solution? The "build" approach has hidden risks and costs.

There were 17 named Atlantic storms in 2017, and if we have as many again this year they will be called Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, and Rafael.

Imagine two very different locations subject to every type of natural catastrophe. Which types of disaster do you think would cause the biggest difference in the loss at those two locations?

A recent report from AIR and Lloyd’s of London estimates that a failure of a top cloud service provider could cost the U.S. economy USD 15 billion and insurers up to USD 3 billion, highlighting a sizable protection gap. Despite several eye-opening incidents (e.g. Wannacry and Petya ransomware attacks) that have showcased the loss potential caused by systemic cyber risk, insured losses for the industry have thus far been minimal.

Compared to standard-value homes, high-value homes are larger and more complex structures generally constructed better and with more expensive materials. However, they can be more susceptible to damage during an earthquake than their standard-value counterparts.