Guy Carpenter unveils flood model for the Philippines
Guy Carpenter & Company has launched the Philippines Flood Model, providing countrywide coverage and enabling insurers to assess flood exposure in the region.
The Philippines Flood Model is based on a 10,000-year stochastic catalogue simulating both fluvial (riverine) and pluvial (rainfall) flooding, including the impact of typhoon-induced precipitation. It was developed by incorporating data from a number of public and private institutions, including JBA, Intermap and the European Space Agency. It features up-to-date flood defense information resulting from a comprehensive survey of current mitigation projects, including those sponsored by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The fluvial component was developed using hydrological and hydraulic modeling to simulate river discharges across the country’s river network. Pluvial flooding is simulated using an in-house methodology accounting for local climate conditions, soil type, land use, and topography.
The model produces event-loss tables, occurrence exceedance probability curves and average annual losses and is powered by the Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, an open-source catastrophe modeling platform designed and built by the re/insurance industry.
The Philippines model is the latest in a series of flood modeling tools developed to expand Guy Carpenter’s risk management capabilities in Asia Pacific.
Bengt Johnsen, head of South East Asia and Korea region at Guy Carpenter, pointed to the long history of devastating flood events in the Philippines, and the combined impacts of climate change and rapid urbanisation that are aggravating the problem in the country. “Our model provides clients with best-in-class capabilities to quantify flood risk and make informed business decisions, both for internal risk management purposes and for the placement of reinsurance,” he said.
Mark Weatherhead, head of model development at Guy Carpenter, described flooding as “one of the costliest but least quantified perils globally.”
