Newark, CA – May 6, 2020: The world is experiencing the extraordinary crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the never-ending climate crisis and escalating cyber threats. Markets, supply chains, economies, societies and assets can be highly susceptible to shocks and damage from these dynamically shifting risks, posing major challenges to understanding the impacts of these risks and to recovery. Today, at the annual Exceedance® conference, RMS, the world’s leading catastrophe risk solutions company, underscored the high cost that both acute and chronic risks pose while demonstrating that informed decision-making requires next-generation risk insights. To help address these challenges, RMS announced new model updates during the conference – focusing on infectious diseases, climate and cyber risk.
During his keynote presentation today, Mohsen Rahnama, Executive Vice President, Models, at RMS, compared lessons from COVID-19 to the response to climate change: “Over the last 120 days, every daily action has been critical to flattening the COVID-19 curve and has given us more data to gain insights into outcomes; similarly, climate change has gradually influenced risk over the last 120 years and will for the years to come. In turn, actions taken annually by companies and organizations will be equally critical to both understanding the totality of the risks and impacting outcomes. The effects span all parts of the insurance value chain from acute risks arising from catastrophic events, such as hurricane landfalls, to chronic risks, such as coastal flooding at high tide.”
In the same keynote, Pete Dailey, Vice President, Model Development, at RMS, stressed that science, data and models have together brought higher confidence to the relationship between climate change and insured perils. “One example is sea level, which we know, based on observations and physics, is rising globally and will continue to rise in the future. RMS is moving forward on two fronts: first, keeping cat models up to date with the latest in climate science, and second, developing new ways of projecting risk based on the future climate, in the near term as well as the long term. In addition, due to COVID-19, extreme weather events that occur this year, such as a major hurricane landfall, will potentially present a number of new challenges for insurers, such as with deployment of adjusters and claims processing, potentially while communities are social distancing. RMS Event Response services provide critical real- time insights for these types of events to help meet these challenges.”
Companies and governments are compelled to understand risks more deeply than ever before, and they need modern technology and the highest-quality, most-advanced models to accomplish this challenging task.
RMS has recently enhanced key models to help clients address the risks posed by these chronic and acute disasters.
ENDS
Newark, CA – December 15, 2020 – RMS, the world’s leading catastrophe risk solutions company, estimates insured losses from the record-breaking western U.S. wildfires this season will be between US$7.0 and US$13.0 billion. These losses reflect estimates as of December 1, 2020 and represent an update from the previously estimated losses from fires up to September 20, 2020. The ignition of the highly damaging Glass Fire and additional spread of the CZU and LNU Complex Fires represent the most notable activity in California since September 20. RMS insured losses represent estimates from major wildfires in California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado at December 1, 2020: Region Insured Losses (USD $ bn) as of 1 December, 2020 Northern California Oregon and Washington Colorado 5.0 - 9.0 1.0 - 3.0 Up to 1.0 The RMS estimate includes losses from property damage, including evacuation and smoke damage, business interruption (BI), and additional living expenses (ALE) across residential, commercial, and industrial lines. Smoke and evacuation are expected to be significant contributors to losses for the wildfires this season, contributing about 20 percent of losses in California and Colorado and about 35 percent in Oregon and Washington. The estimate also accounts for notable post-event loss amplification (PLA) from property damage (25 to 30 percent) and business interruption/ALE (up to 100 percent or greater). The RMS loss estimate is based on detailed modeling of fire spread, ember accumulations, and smoke dispersion of the fires utilizing the U.S. Wildfire High-Definition (HD) Model, part of the North America Wildfire HD Model suite, released in February, 2019. The model covers the entire contiguous U.S. and explicitly simulates ember and smoke to support detailed analysis of the impact of a wildfire beyond historical fire perimeters. The model’s findings were supported by Damage Inspection Specialist (DINS) damage surveys for California Fires, published damage reports from federal and respective state agencies for the Oregon, Washington, and Colorado fires, and the RMS U.S. Wildfire Industry Exposure Database. Michael Young, Vice President, Product Management said: “2020 represents the most destructive fire season on record, in terms of burn area in California. Since August, 69 major fires that exceeded 1,000 burned acres each, have burned so far. Five of the six largest ever California wildfires have occurred in 2020, with over 4.4 million acres burned in total to date. While fires earlier in the season were dominated by ignitions sparked by the intense lightning storm in August, extreme wind-driven fires dominated the last few months. A similar phenomenon resulted in record-breaking fires in Oregon as well this season, with over 20 major fires driven by extreme winds, burning more than 1.2 million acres so far. In October, Colorado experienced its three largest destructive fires with more than 24 major fires burning 850,000 acres in total. Rajkiran Vojjala, Vice President, Model Development said: “This wildfire season reaffirms the growing catastrophic nature of this peril. Wildfire risk is clearly evolving, not only in California, but also in other states, as we observed in Oregon and Colorado. While changing climate patterns have significantly influenced the record-breaking fires this season, several other factors also profoundly affected the ignition potential and expected losses from these events in different ways. Most notable amongst them are the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) measures undertaken by utilities, preparedness and response of firefighters in Northern California despite COVID-19 challenges, and recent legislative actions governing wildfire claims settlement such as the California Senate Bill 872. RMS is currently engaged with various stakeholders in evaluating these factors and understanding their impact on the emerging risk profile of this peril as part of its wildfire modeling agenda.” END The technology and data used in providing this information is based on the scientific data, mathematical and empirical models, and encoded experience of scientists and specialists. As with any model of physical systems, particularly those with low frequencies of occurrence and potentially high severity outcomes, the actual losses from catastrophic events may differ from the results of simulation analyses. RMS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL RESPONSIBILITIES, OBLIGATIONS AND LIABILITY WITH RESPECT TO ANY DECISIONS OR ADVICE MADE OR GIVEN AS A RESULT OF THE INFORMATION OR USE THEREOF, INCLUDING ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL RMS (OR ITS PARENT, SUBSIDIARY, OR OTHER AFFILIATED COMPANIES) BE LIABLE FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WITH RESPECT TO ANY DECISIONS OR ADVICE MADE OR GIVEN AS A RESULT OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS INFORMATION OR USE THEREOF.
London, UK – 23rd Nov, 2020 – RMS, the world’s leading catastrophe risk modeling company, collaborated with Willis Re Securities and Securian Financial to launch the new La Vie Re Limited (Series 2020-1) mortality catastrophe bond providing US$100m of reinsurance protection for Minnesota Life Insurance Company, a Securian Financial affiliate. RMS acted as the modeling agent on the cat bond transaction, providing a view of the risk covered by the bond to investors. RMS used its suite of excess mortality and morbidity models, covering infectious disease pandemics, terrorism, earthquakes, and other perils, including a contribution to the expected loss from the COVID-19 pandemic. Covering the U.S., this is the first indemnity 144A excess mortality bond that models the cedants’ portfolio on a loss ratio basis. The notes being issued by La Vie Re were launched to cat bond investors, and the full US$100m principal was achieved with a coupon price of 2.85%. Jin Shah, Client Director, RMS, said: “Investors have warmly welcomed Securian Financial as a new sponsor to the ILS market. Likewise, RMS is pleased to support another new issuer secure reinsurance protection from the ILS market with a novel structure and trigger. Using our life risk modeling capabilities, RMS developed an indemnity trigger on loss ratios and supported investors’ understanding of the risk, especially on the contribution from the current COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic outlooks reflect the latest research on vaccine availability, efficacy and distribution, and how this may mitigate the impact of a second, winter wave of COVID-19 infections threatening regions where strict social distancing measures have been relaxed. It was a pleasure to collaborate with Securian Financial and Willis Re Securities and it’s great to see the ILS market continue to support innovation in the market.”
NEWARK, CA – October 27, 2020 – RMS, the world’s leading catastrophe risk modeling company, announces the appointment of Patrick (Pat) McCarthy as Executive Vice President of Sales and Client Development, with immediate effect. Pat will lead this global organization for RMS, and brings a successful track record of delivering meaningful innovations and high-value solutions to some of the world’s most revered enterprises. Pat joins RMS from SAP, where most recently he was Senior Vice President and General Manager of SAP’s Ariba and Fieldglass businesses, focused on enterprise supply chain optimization and risk reduction. He also supported customers as they moved from legacy solutions to SaaS, always with an eye on value creation. Pat had been at SAP for 15 years in various senior roles including as COO for a large part of the US business, the Midwest Market Unit. Prior to SAP, Pat spent seven years at Oracle in various leadership roles spanning sales, industry, and solution roles in its JD Edwards and PeopleSoft businesses. Pat started his career with ten years at Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Co, where he held several management roles. Pat will report directly to RMS CEO, Karen White. Karen White, Chief Executive Officer at RMS, said: “Pat is joining at an exciting and challenging time in our industry and at RMS. He is exceptionally strategic and has earned his stellar reputation for bringing mission-critical innovations and solutions to global customers. Pat’s impressive approach to deeply understanding the markets and enterprise customers he serves, with an eye on helping them to innovate and on their business outcomes, is aligned with RMS’s mission to be a strong strategic partner for our customers. Pat’s formidable experience supporting global customers as they leveraged leading-edge technology and solutions to advance their businesses will be a great asset to RMS and the customers we serve.” Pat McCarthy added: “I’m very excited to be joining RMS as it’s an honor to work for a company so focused on building resilience into businesses and economies. For 30 years, RMS’s science and models have been the most trusted view of risk in the industry. It’s more important now than ever before that clients have access to the best modeling science and platforms, helping them drive business results that exceed their expectation. I’m pleased to be leading a team that continues to leverage our core strengths and simultaneously maps out a future with our clients that leverages innovations and the latest science as we tackle the future of risk.”
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