Nat Cat series Part 1: North Atlantic Hurricane season review

SCOR INNOVATION PODCAST

It seems that every time a natural catastrophe happens it is unique, and something new is learned from each incident by the insurance industry. Newer thoughts on Wet-Hurricanes started to surface after Hurricane Harvey ran aground in 2017, modelling difficult frequency perils became more and more evident with the increasing losses year over year from Severe convective storms, and climate and its effect on individual perils like what happened with Winter Storm Uri in Texas in February of 2021 will also be explored. Our first episode is a review of the 2021 North Atlantic Hurricane season and its unique characteristics, effects of climate change, challenges, and projected impacts. Based on the most recent 30-year data from NOAA, the average number of named storms in a year is about 14. For the 2021 hurricane season, NOAA predicted that up to 20 named storms would form, with up to 10 hurricanes (compared to an average of 7), and up to 5 major hurricanes (compared to an average of 3).This discussion between three SCOR experts explores the lessons learned from it and how these lessons may lead to new ways of looking at this peril in the future. - Derek is SVP Natural Catastrophe Manager of The Americas, he is specialized in Catastrophe Modeling - RMS, AIR, Statistical Analysis, databases, software development, networks. He arrived in SCOR eight years ago. Prior to this, he spent 5 years at Ascot Group as VP Exposure Management. Derek has a Master degree in Management Information Systems from the Northern Illinois University, and is still based in Chicago. - Ken has over 40 years of Insurance/Reinsurance experience having begun his career in the claims dept of the Aviation and General Ins Co in 1978. He entered the world of Reinsurance in 1986 gaining independent Underwriting authority for a globally exposed Property Catastrophe Excess of Loss book in 1991. Ken primarily specialized on the US region and in 2003, after a number of years operating as a Catastrophe Underwriter in the London Market he took up a position outside Chicago, Illinois as the US Catastrophe Product lead for GE Insurance Solutions. GE Insurance Solutions was acquired by Swiss Re in 2005 and Ken was retained as a Catastrophe specialist within their US Product team until 2016 when he joined SCOR US, also in Chicago. Ken remains focused on the US Catastrophe arena and has also authored a number of published articles appertaining to US Catastrophe risk and participated in numerous industry events as a panel speaker. - Kelly is an Assistant Vice President on the Natural Catastrophe Pricing team at SCOR. She provides catastrophe expertise and risk quantification, including operational support for the pricing and accumulation of treaty business for North America. She joined SCOR in 2018 in the Chicago office and is now based in Toronto. Prior to joining SCOR, Kelly worked as a Catastrophe Risk Analyst for Aon. She is a graduate of Northwestern University with a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics and holds the CPCU and ARe designations. Kelly also serves on the committee for CatIQ, Canada’s insured loss and exposure indices provider.