In 2018, California suffered its most costly and deadly fire season to date. The year’s costliest insured loss event was California’s Camp Fire at USD 12 billion — also the most destructive fire in the state’s history. Additionally in 2018, over 100 people perished in wildfires in Greece; British Columbia, Canada, suffered its worst wildfire season in history; in Australia, bush ... Continue Reading »
Wildfire
CAT-i Report: Australia Bushfires – January 8, 2020
Bushfire activity in the last few months has rendered significant impacts to portions of Australia, and especially so in recent weeks with severe impacts reported in New South Wales. The bushfire activity has caused devastating impacts to human life, property, infrastructure, and wildlife. Extreme fire weather conditions across the country together with record heat and drought ... Continue Reading »
Review of Climate Change Risks on GC Capital Ideas
Here we highlight the recent stories that GC Capital Ideas has presented on managing risks associated with climate change. ... Continue Reading »
The Burning Issue: Managing Wildfire Risk
In recent years, countries such as Canada, the United States, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Chile have experienced unusually severe fires, claiming hundreds of lives and causing billions of dollars in damage. Wildfires have also broken out in countries previously unaccustomed to the problem. In 2018, for example, northern European countries experienced between 20 and 200 times ... Continue Reading »
Modeling Insights
Here we review recent GC Capital Ideas posts covering insights on modeling. Terror: The Role of Technology and Analytics: Terrorism, political violence and other malicious acts differ from other insurable perils in that they are dynamic and adaptive; there is human intent driving the probability and willing the impacts to change. Historic incidents show past trends, but ... Continue Reading »
Weather Sentinel: Extremely Critical Wildfire Weather
Overnight, firefighters took advantage of a break in Santa Ana wind conditions to enhance containment of the Kincade Fire in Northern California, and the Getty Fire in Southern California. Collectively, nearly 135 structures have been lost, while many thousands remain threatened and evacuated. Offshore flow is forecast to strengthen during the mid-day in the Bay Area and ... Continue Reading »
Wildfire Risk and Underwriting Strategy
In 2018, California suffered its most costly and deadly fire season to date. The year’s costliest insured loss event was California’s Camp Fire at USD 12 billion — also the most destructive fire in the state’s history. Additionally in 2018, over 100 people perished in wildfires in Greece; British Columbia, Canada, suffered its worst wildfire season in history; in Australia, bush ... Continue Reading »
Climate Resilience: Opportunities for the Insurance Industry
The potential impact of the effects of climate change is requiring multiple stakeholders to re-think their approach to climate resilience. In recent years we have witnessed heightened weather volatility, and according to the majority of scientific opinion, this trend is expected to continue, according to Ruth Lux, Head of Public Sector EMEA, Placement Solutions Group. ... Continue Reading »
The Changing Nature of Risk
In a recently published report by Guy Carpenter, we analyze how an accumulation of losses from recent extreme weather events, the specter of climate change and higher loss cost trends in a number of long-tail business lines are forcing carriers to reassess views of risk. Capital inflow levels and risk appetites are responding accordingly, according to Robert Bentley, CEO, ... Continue Reading »
The Changing Nature of Risk: Part II
Non-peak Perils Costs for non-peak perils in recent years have also accumulated to make a significant contribution to industry losses. Wildfires especially have come under close scrutiny after losses in California in 2017 and 2018, as well as Canada in 2016, spiraled to become significant reinsurance and retrocession events. In fact, insured losses from wildfire activity in ... Continue Reading »
