Natural disasters

The industry’s reliance on historical loss data and traditional catastrophe models is limiting its understanding of future climate risks.

Insurers have closed shop in Louisiana and Florida, leaving in the lurch thousands of homeowners.

Tornado damage can leave lasting financial burdens on the homeowners they affect.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety announced standards that can demonstrably lower a home’s risk of wildfire damage.

The World Property and Casualty Insurance Report emphasizes the effects of climate change on the insurance industry.

Already, 2022 is taking its place in a pantheon of years that have seen the nature of fire change — and all parts of the world fall under threat.

Farmers, CNA and The Hartford share resources.

16 lawmakers issued letters to more than a dozen insurance companies, including American International Group Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Co. and Chubb Ltd.

According to a new report from the real estate firm Redfin, “Majority-Hispanic” neighborhoods are more likely to see their flood-insurance premiums rise than any other major ethnic or racial neighborhood group.

Since 2017, there have been 86 weather-related disasters in the U.S. exceeding $1 billion in damage.

Freddie Mac researchers led by Ajita Atreya found that homes directly exposed to projected sea-level rise command no discount over those that aren’t.

The glass tower in Paris where Axa SA, one of the world’s largest insurers, has its temporary headquarters looks as if a giant feral cat has ripped chunks out of it. In recent months that jagged feeling extends inside, too, as senior executives prepared to claw off an extraordinarily profitable part of the company’s $20 billion business: the oil and gas clients whose ties to the insurer go back decades.

More than 126,000 commercial buildings in London are at risk from flash flooding. Climate change will heighten that threat.

More than 14.5 million single and multi-family homes were affected by natural disaster events last year. There was an estimated $56.92 billion in property damage.

We want insurers to transform from premium collectors to lifelong protectors. And technology is at the core of helping them achieve this.

The total losses and physical damages were estimated to cost $343 billion, well below the peak loss year in 2011 of $615 billion, however the 2021 losses, compared to 2011-2020 were about 4% higher than the average of $271 billion, according to the 2021 Weather, Climate and Catastrophe Insight report.

A recent study shows cyber incidents, business interruption and natural catastrophes are the most important global business risks for companies in 2022.

In 2020, natural disasters, excluding COVID-19, caused a total of $76 billion in insured losses, as opposed to the $7 billion in man-made insured losses. Companies must prepare to meet the demands of an increased customer base, including facilitating an easy claims process and expanding digital access.

Breakthroughs in AI over the past decade mean we can now use it to train computer vision algorithms to perform visual tasks as accurately or more than humans. Smartphones can be turned into visual experts in your pocket, which can appraise some aspects of the environment better than people.

In a report titled Shifting Powers, academics at the University of Cambridge and experts at the insurance marketplace Lloyd’s of London try and imagine what that reshaped world is likely to look like.