Wildfire: a burning issue for the insurance industry

In this IIL property webinar, Sébastien Piguet and Akshay Sundar discussed what we currently know about wildfire risk, how to leverage advanced modelling techniques and remote sensing technologies to underwrite the risk, and finally about mitigation and parametric risk transfer solutions available.

The recent 2020 wildfires across the US West Coast and the early-year bushfires in Australia represented the worst fire events in the respective regions in recorded history. Unfortunately, these events are not major anomalies, but appear to follow an upward regional trend of increasing burnt area by season. Driven by factors ranging from climate change to urbanization patterns, forest fire likelihood increases as the incremental amount of contact between humans and risk prone wildlands also increases. Cumulatively, this results in a growing trend in losses sustained.

For insurance, the evolving risk of extremely severe events calls for a much better understanding of the peril. Fortunately, a more accurate estimation of wildfire risk is possible due to recent improvements in satellite data and state-of-the-art modelling techniques that mine value from these newly available, highly granular sources. With this improved understanding, stakeholders can be better prepared, as well as knowledgeable of their exposure to wildfire. Similarly, as we develop a more concrete understanding of their exposure, stakeholders can better protect themselves from wildfire, either through mitigation efforts or by transferring some of the risk. This would involve taking steps to minimize the impact of wildfires on their assets and also, insure their properties against the peril - increasing their resilience against the rising trend of wildfire.

By the end of this webinar members would have gained an insight into:

• The science of wildfire
• Underwriting wildfire risks thanks to advanced modelling and remote sensing technologies
• Mitigation and parametric risk transfer solution

You will be sent a confirmation email shortly after booking. If you have not received this within one hour, please contact Patricia Pedraza (020 7397 3911).

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