February 26, 2010
Following groundbreaking research, scientists have quantified the potential impact of climate change on insured risks from three natural hazards that are dominant in their respective regions: inland floods in Great Britain, winter windstorms in the U.K., and typhoons in China. The study coupled the UK Met Office’s expertise in climate modeling with catastrophe modeling expertise from AIR Worldwide.
February 17, 2010
In this article, AIR Director of Atmospheric Science Dr. Peter Dailey and AIR Principal Engineer Dr. Vineet Jain provide a high level overview of the many enhancements slated for release in Version 12.0 of the AIR Hurricane Model.
February 17, 2010
There is often a tendency to discount earthquake risk in regions where earthquakes occur infrequently. It is a tendency that carries its own risk. For some regions, the historical record is too short to provide a realistic view of long-term risk—and several factors other than frequency contribute to the potential for large losses. This article discusses some of those factors in the context of a comparison between earthquake risk in Perth, Australia, and Wellington, New Zealand.
January 13, 2010
Since the early 1990’s, AIR has conducted research exploring the relationship between elevated ocean temperatures and tropical cyclone activity. In 2007, AIR introduced in its U.S. hurricane model an alternative view of U.S. hurricane risk—one conditioned on those years since 1900 with warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Three years later, Dr. Peter S. Dailey, AIR Director of Atmospheric Science, takes a step back to discuss the relative performance of the standard and so-called WSST catalogs thus far.
January 12, 2010
Dr John E. Alarcon, Research Associate in AIR’s London Office, co-led the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team’s (EEFIT) mission after the M7.6 earthquake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra last September. In this article, Dr. Alarcon recounts the event and presents some preliminary findings on the distribution of damage in the city of Padang and surrounding region.
January 12, 2010
This article first appeared in the December issue of ISO Review, ISO’s quarterly publication for insurance executives and management. In it, AER’s Dr. Ross Hoffman, AIR’s Dr. Peter Dailey and ISO’s Michael Murray discuss the importance of proactive risk management in the face of an uncertain future global climate.
December 11, 2009
This brochure presents an overview of the AIR Earthquake Model for the Mediterranean Region, which covers Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Israel. The model supplements historical data with original research by AIR scientists, as well as geodetic and paleoseismic data, to provide a sophisticated view of seismic risk in this complex region. Damage functions take into consideration the unique building types and construction practices in each country, as well as the age and condition of the building stock. Policy conditions, such as the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool, are accounted for in a detailed and comprehensive manner. In a region characterized by considerable seismicity and substantial concentrations of high-value exposure, companies need state-of-the-art tools to help them mitigate the risk from the next large-scale event.
December 11, 2009
This brochure provides an overview of the AIR Wildfire Model for
California. The AIR model captures the factors that drive wildfire
ignition, growth (in size and intensity) and spread—as well as the
factors that contribute to or mitigate insured losses, such as the
construction characteristics of potentially vulnerable structures. The
model incorporates high-resolution fuels data from the LANDFIRE
database, the most comprehensive, up-to-date source of information on
vegetation in the U.S. The AIR Wildfire Model for California is a vital
tool that helps insurers, reinsurers, and intermediaries better
identify exposures located in high-risk areas and manage and mitigate
their wildfire risk.
December 09, 2009
Ten years ago this December Europe was subjected to three fiercely intense storms in rapid succession, Anatol, which arrived on December 3rd, Lothar, which struck on December 26th, and Martin, which immediately followed Lothar on December 27th. Together the storms brought much of Europe to a halt, killed more than 160 people, wreaked widespread damage and inflicted catastrophic insured losses of more than ten billion Euros (1999). In this article, Managing Director of AIR’s Munich operations, Yörn Tatge, describes the events, notes their impact on the insurance industry and addresses the continuing importance of European winter storms.
December 09, 2009
Twenty years ago this month, the deadliest earthquake on Australian soil occurred near Newcastle, an industrial city on Australia’s east coast. The moderate-magnitude earthquake caused extensive property damage and led to the largest insurance loss1 (trended to current dollars) from a natural catastrophe in Australian history. AIR senior scientist Dr. Khosrow Shabestari and senior engineer Dr. Peeranan Towashiraporn describe the significance of the event and consider Australia’s earthquake risk.