Walker Institute links with the insurance industry
The Walker Institute is a key player in the Willis Research Network - the largest existing collaboration between the insurance industry and academia.
The Walker Institute - through the Department of Meteorology and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science Climate Programme will be involved in research relating to the risks from storms, floods and other hazardous weather - including improving our understanding of the way climate change might change the frequency, severity and regional distribution of such events.
Read the press release >>
Our research and its relevance to the insurance industry
The type of information needed by the insurance industry - and many other sectors - relates to extreme events which are often quite localised or regional - e.g., tropical cyclones, heavy rain storms, high winds related to depressions in the mid-latitudes.
These processes are a challenge for even the most sophisticated global climate models which operate on quite coarse grids - 100s km across.
We are also leading the UK in high resolution modelling. See HiGEM project and UK/Japan project.
In the Walker Institute we carry out fundamental research to understand in detail the processes involved in storms.
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Insurance and climate
A large proportion of insurance losses are due to weather related events: floods, heatwaves, droughts, storms, tropical cyclones/hurricanes. Storms and floods contribute the largest proportion (over 90%) of these losses.
Within the insurance industry there is concern because of a dramtic increase in weather related losses over the last 10 to 15 years.
"Every year since 1990 there have been at least 20 weather events globally that are severe enough to be classified by reinsurers as significant natural catastrophes. Yet in the 20 years prior to 1990, only three years experienced more than 20 such events. Insured losses averaged about $16 bn per year between 1990 and the end of 2004, but only $3 bn per year in the 20 years preceding 1990 (2004 prices)."
(from ABI report on Climate Change and Insurance, 2004.)
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