March 2015

Rising sea levels, climate change, and resiliency are buzzwords floating around lately, and we engineers and catastrophe modelers are paying attention.

Over the last 85 years the number of people at risk from tornadoes has increased dramatically, yet the tornado fatality rate has dropped significantly. This is undoubtedly good news, but a bigger drop would be even better.

We have seen many headlines about massive data breaches caused by cyber criminals who steal personal information with the ultimate goal of making money. But sometimes, they go straight for the cash.

I am very excited to report that AIR has completed development of global pandemic disease risk models for coronaviruses (such as those responsible for SARS and MERS) and filoviruses (including Ebola and Marburg).

AIR has teamed up with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) to investigate whether the perception of the increasing economic cost of disaster events is real. That is, is our world really becoming more dangerous?

In late February, I had the chance to present our U.S. severe thunderstorm model at the National Tornado Summit in Oklahoma City, OK. Attendees included representatives from the insurance industry, regulators, emergency managers, disaster recovery companies, and many others.

In November 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines with the strongest winds the country had ever seen, but the substantial storm surge generated proved even more deadly.

The Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA) is an annual internal process undertaken by insurers to assess the adequacy of their enterprise risk management (ERM) and solvency positions under both normal and severe stress scenarios. An ORSA represents the insurer's own assessment of their current and future risks.

A question has been popping up quite often recently: We have now had a nine-year stretch without a hurricane landfall in Florida. Is this (ab)normal?