The Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Centre (GCACIC), a joint initiative of Guy Carpenter and City University of Hong Kong, today released its fourth annual report presenting the findings of the GCACIC’s research activities from the past year. The report details the findings of 22 projects conducted by the GCACIC, which focus on climate problems in the Asia-Pacific region as well as on a global scale.

Continue reading…

GC Securities, a division of MMC Securities Corp., a U.S. registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC, today announced the placement of the Series 2013-1 Notes, with notional principal of $300,000,000, through an existing catastrophe bond shelf program, Long Point Re III Ltd., to benefit Travelers. This is the second time that Travelers has accessed indemnity-triggered, fully collateralized reinsurance protection from the catastrophe bond market.

Continue reading…

A new briefing has been published with the purpose of informing Guy Carpenter’s approach to hurricane risk in the context of new scientific findings.

Continue reading…

GC Securities, a division of MMC Securities Corp., a U.S. registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC, today announced the placement of the Series 2013-1 Notes, with notional principal at $500,000,000, through a newly formed catastrophe bond shelf program, Tar Heel Re Ltd., to benefit the North Carolina Joint Underwriting Association and the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association (collectively, the NCJUA/NCIUA). This is the fourth time that the NCJUA/NCIUA has utilized the cat bond market to manage its tropical cyclone risks and the first time that an annual aggregate structure was utilized.

Continue reading…

Here we review recent GC Capital Ideas stories that have touched on issues relating to the Solvency II regime.

Continue reading…

Here we review all of the CAT-i report events that appeared on GC Capital Ideas in the second half of 2012.

Floods in Eastern Australia, February 1: Ex-tropical cyclone Oswald tracked over parts of Queensland and New South Wales in eastern Australia between January 23 and January 30, resulting in widespread damage from flooding, severe storms and tornadoes. Floodwaters in some areas reached record levels, causing damage to thousands of properties and forcing widespread evacuations.

Read the article >>

Update: Sandy, October 31: The full scope of Sandy’s impacts will still take a day or two to emerge. As storm surge recedes and those affected survey the damage, the last 24 hours have brought new reports of downed trees and power lines, with localized inland flooding, over an incredibly large area from the Mid-Atlantic to the Great Lakes to Atlantic Canada.

Read the article >>

Tropical Storm Isaac, August 30:  Tropical Storm Isaac now carries maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. It continues its slow drift, now to the north-northwest. Storm surge, inland flooding, and inland tornadoes remain as ongoing hazards with Isaac.

Read the article >>

Click here to register to receive e-mail updates >>

Event Summary

Ex-tropical cyclone Oswald tracked over parts of Queensland and New South Wales in eastern Australia between January 23 and January 30, resulting in widespread damage from flooding, severe storms and tornadoes. Floodwaters in some areas reached record levels, causing damage to thousands of properties and forcing widespread evacuations. A number of towns and cities were affected by severe flooding, including Brisbane, Ipswich, Bundaberg and Rockhampton. Bundaberg was particularly badly hit. The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has reported an estimated insured loss of AUD290 million (USD302 million) from the event as at 4pm on January 31. The 2013 flood event comes just two years after significant flooding hit Queensland in January 2011, which resulted in insured losses of around AUD2.4 billion (USD2.5 billion).

Continue reading…

Guy Carpenter reports that the reinsurance sector enters 2013 equipped with ample dedicated capital and stable pricing. In its 2013 global renewal report, The Route to Profitable Growth, Guy Carpenter finds that the January 1, 2013 renewals took place against a stable backdrop, with only loss-affected lines and select regions experiencing price volatility. The market was supported by a combination of factors including lower than normal catastrophe losses during the first nine months of 2012, new reinsurance capacity and record-high levels of capital.

Continue reading…

Guy Carpenter Asia-Pacific Climate Impact Centre (GCACIC), a joint initiative of Guy Carpenter & Company and City University of Hong Kong, issued its annual predictions for the 2012/2013 tropical cyclone season for the Australian region. The final forecast is for near-normal activity (12 tropical cyclones) for the region.

Continue reading…

Elizabeth Cleary, Managing Director, Valerie Kloepfer, Managing Director, Imelda Powers, Ph.D., Global Chief Cat Modeler, Sherry Thomas, Head of Catastrophe Management - Americas and James Waller, Ph.D., Research Meteorologist
Contact

Why Do Results for North Carolina Differ So Dramatically Between ALPHA and GAMMA?

• Overall frequency is similarly modeled for North Carolina in both ALPHA and GAMMA. However, GAMMA has slightly higher overall modeled frequency (historical view), while ALPHA has a measurably higher modeled frequency of Cat 3-5 storms for North Carolina, and therefore fewer lower severity Cat 1-2 storms versus GAMMA.
• In the ALPHA model, North Carolina storms generally have larger footprints, pushing the storms further north and west, even producing losses in areas where GAMMA does not generate any loss. For a state like North Carolina, where there are high exposure values inland, this is generally a key driver for larger ALPHA losses in the state. Factors that could reverse the aforementioned ALPHA and GAMMA comparison are usually not strong enough to reverse the general statewide observations. Such factors include a larger GAMMA damage ratio especially at higher wind speeds (impacting coastal counties) and larger wind deductible impact modeled in ALPHA.
• Inland portfolios modeled in ALPHA are impacted by ALPHA’s slower wind decay for storms making landfall in North Carolina, typically resulting in larger losses for those portfolios versus GAMMA. The example in Figure 2  from Hurricane Isabel shows losses going all the way up to northwest Pennsylvania, which seems to be consistent with the reported impacts of the storm. Historical storm loss footprints for Hugo (1989), Fran (1996) and Floyd (1999) show similar patterns, with GAMMA losses typically truncated geographically more so than observed for these actual events.

Continue reading…