AIR updates its catastrophe models for Europe and New Zealand
Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide (AIR) has made a number of changes to its risk models.
Among the changes are an expansion of its inland flood model for Central Europe to include Poland in its model domain.
The model is a fully stochastic, event-based flood model designed to support both individual risk selection and portfolio risk management. It covers the effects of precipitation-induced flooding to insurable properties for both on- and off-floodplain locations. It also includes physically based rainfall-runoff modeling and hydraulic modeling of detailed river networks extending more than 250,000 kilometers in the relevant countries and more than 45,000 stream links and unit catchments.
AIR has also updated the storm surge component of its coastal flood model for Great Britain. It is now incorporated into the AIR Extratropical Cyclone Model for Europe, which captures damage and loss associated with winds from large-scale windstorms in 22 European countries. It includes new storm surge events for the stochastic catalog and an expanded model domain that includes all coastal areas of England and Wales.
Cagdas Kafali, senior vice president of research at AIR Worldwide, said: “With approximately 10 to 15 percent of coastline less than 5 meters above sea level, the UK is one of the countries in Europe most vulnerable to coastal flooding. The new surge sub-peril can capture the effects of storm surge flooding on insured properties on the coasts of England and Wales and help address the wide spectrum of storm surge risk management needs of all stakeholders throughout the insurance and reinsurance industries, while accounting for the insurance policy conditions specific to the modeled regions of Great Britain.”
AIR also recently updated its earthquake model for New Zealand. It incorporates scientific research from the 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence and the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, as well as earthquakes worldwide, evaluating claims and damage data from a range of insurance markets.
