2017

With the current state of the reinsurance market—dropping prices, increasing M&A activity, an influx of other capital sources, a lack of major CAT events—it's more important than ever to make optimal decisions when it comes to managing your portfolio.

Last year we invited InFocus readers to enter the Hurricane Contest that AIR’s employees have enjoyed for the last seven years. Now we are a couple of weeks from the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, and we’re running the contest again!

A new strain of ransomware, called WannaCry or Wcry, has been spreading around the world, infecting hundreds of thousands of computers in 150 countries. What distinguishes this ransomware from most of the strains that have been seen so far is that it also spreads like a worm or virus.

Natural catastrophes can contribute to outbreaks of disease by damaging infrastructure, displacing people, and hampering the function of public health programs. In this post we will look specifically at one of the most problematic perils in terms of disease spread: flooding.

U.S. insurance companies are scrambling to explain higher quarterly losses than they've seen in years. But should the losses from severe weather in the first quarter of 2017 really come as a surprise?

In December 2016, the White House released the Standards and Finance to Support Community Resilience report, which proposes key areas for developing more resilient homes, businesses, and infrastructure in the United States.

When we think of disease outbreaks, we often think about dramatic epidemics of novel disease agents (Zika, HIV, Ebola, etc.) sweeping through a population that has no natural defenses against them. However, most outbreaks are of known diseases.

While some studies have suggested that continued warming of the Earth’s surface will eventually lead to an increase in the proportion of strong tropical cyclones, considerable uncertainty in this result remains, and the impact of a clear overall warming trend on the insurance industry is also somewhat ambiguous.

Recovery from a major earthquake, or indeed any extreme event, is always a lengthy process, even for wealthy and developed countries. An earthquake fades from the headlines after a few weeks, but recovery in the impacted region can continue for years.

As (re)insurance companies accumulate more and more risks, the data contained in these portfolios continues to grow. Understanding how to make sense of it all is critical, and there is no shortage of metrics one can employ.