Convergence: Bermuda perfectly placed at intersection of risk and science

No jurisdiction in the world is better placed to meld technological innovations, financial innovations and regulatory reform to bring new solutions, according to former Bermuda Business Development Agency chair Steve Weinstein. 

Weinstein, who is now chair of the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Science and chair of Itasca Re, will moderate a session at Convergence tomorrow on Accelerating Solutions in Markets and the Field – How Collaboration and Innovation Can Close Protection Gaps, Extend our Understanding, and Put Technology to Work. 

Weinstein is also one of the driving forces behind the staging of the full afternoon of sessions tomorrow afternoon on “Converging Innovation: Accelerating Science and ILS Solutions”.

“Every day we’re reminded by how rapidly risk is changing, and also by how many exciting opportunities there are to meld technological innovations, financial innovations and regulatory reform to bring new solutions,” he said. “There is no jurisdiction in the world that better illustrates that possibility than Bermuda. 

“So it's also really quite appropriate that this event is happening in Bermuda and that our innovation symposium is taking part in Bermuda.” 

Weinstein said Bermuda and BIOS were well established as a centre for climate and ocean research and had shown its ability to apply climate sciences to the financial markets, beginning with property catastrophe reinsurance and extending to ILS “and then to a new generation of really interesting products”.

He added: “I’m also pleased that the content we're offering isn’t limited to climate because across the board, if technology can improve your ability to price risk, trade risk, transacted digitally and provide transparency, Bermuda might very well be a terrific domicile for the needs of the world.”

Weistein said Bermuda’s unique position as a domicile that had a history of insurance innovation, scientific research and a regulator who was well positioned to enable products to come market quickly was essential today. 

“We really want to push collaboration and acceleration, and then it's not an accident that this is taking place in Bermuda, because there's such an interest in appetite from the leadership and players that operate from Bermuda,” he said. 

“But there is no jurisdiction that is likely to help people get solutions to market more rapidly than Bermuda,” he said, adding that the problems facing the risk industry were so serious that insurers did not have time to spend years getting new products through the thicket of regulatory systems in the US and elsewhere. 

“This is utterly fit for purpose. A very nimble regime is not only a huge advantage for investing in Bermuda, but a huge advantage for the world. We have a trusted regulator with ample resources for being smart and pragmatic about innovations that meld science and financial services innovation. 

“The BMA has an extraordinarily successful track record, and they're quite well resourced, their views are accepted worldwide and we don't have time to we don't have a decade for a process that would be more complicated.”

Weinstein said he believed climate change is the “biggest megatrend” the world faces but is far from the only one. 

Weinstein said the panel he was moderating would bring together innovators at the intersection of risk and research, including Michael Echols, CEO, Wildfire Water Solutions, whose company has developed proprietary technology that they believe can reduce substantially the impacts of wildfire loss, and Vishaal Bhuyan, founder of Aanika Biosciences, which has pioneered technology to code molecules which can be used to track problems in the food supply chain and to quickly identify contamination. 

Other panellists are: Hanni Ali, Vice-Chair, ILS Bermuda & Group Head of ILS & Sustainability, Hamilton Insurance Group; Kelly Barr, Associate Vice President and Chief Alliance Officer, Global Futures Laboratory; and Eusebio Scornavacca, Director and Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University. 

The panel takes place at 3.35pm on Wednesday. 

Weinstein said he hoped the sessions would help to bring together closer collaboration between science and risk management. 

“I think we have a lot of collaboration and we can be proud of what we've done, but it isn't enough, and one telling signal that it is not enough is that we haven't solved these problems yet,” he said. 

Weinstein said one pattern that had become apparent to him over his career was that an event that might come as a surprise to one industry often turned out to be no surprise to others. 

“Very frequently, somewhere in the world, someone has been studying it,” he said. “I think the world after Hurricane Andrew is a case in point. Andrew was a shock to the insurance and reinsurance industries, but not for people carrying out meteorology and storm research. 

“The real key was to find them and begin the process of translating their understanding into actionable business tools. 

“In the same way, there's an enormous effort underway to pioneer new tools in AI with new governance mechanisms. We need a bridge from that world into the risk bearing world, so that we can bring the benefits of our suite of products to their ecosystem and we can only do that as we come to understand it a little bit better.” 

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