The Risks of Hazard

With 2015 now firmly in the past, I am seeing a lot of blogs with 2015 Top 5 lists. As with all good ideas, it needs to be copied assimilated. Today, I am counting down the Top 5 articles from last year based on viewership.

Without any ado at all, here are the Top 5 Risks of Hazard episodes from 2015:

5. Is Disruption Really Coming to Insurance? In October I attended a conference in San Francisco exploring how insurance was about to be disrupted. I wrote this post afterwards, being unconvinced. Meanwhile, a nice debate about it has popped up at ITL, here and here.

The Internet of Things (or the IoT) is a real boon for technology bloggers, and it is time Risks of Hazard took a look at it. First, some background: here’s what the IoT is, how it works, why it’s not everywhere yet, its impact on insurance, and how it threatens the insurance industry (!). But there is not much about the IoT and natural catastrophe risk out there yet, presumably because they are not really related…

False. The IoT and natural catastrophe risk assessment have one thing very much in common: the importance of location.

This week saw the House Financial Services housing subcommittee receiving comments on H.R. 2901, the bill introduced last June to recognize private flood insurance as adequate to satisfy FEMA’s mandatory purchase requirements. Or, to paraphrase: “Legalize Cherry Picking!”

AM Best reported on the hearing on January 15 (mind the subscription wall), and, to my delight, they use the term “cherry picking.” While it’s a perfect name for the act of underwriting the best properties in the compulsive purchase NFHA, I hadn’t seen it in reputable media until now (except for Insurance Thought Leadership, where Nick Lamparelli and I put it).

In August, we took a look at how this winter’s El Niño was shaping up. While most predictions pointed to an El Niño comparable with 1997 (the worst on record), some were predicting that a “Godzilla El Niño” was on its way. Now that we’re in the midst of it, let’s take a look at how El Niño has shaped up.

First off, Happy New Year to everyone with an interest in nat cat analytics for insurance.

To kick off 2016, The Risks of Hazard would like to address the biggest single problem faced by the insurance industry as a whole. Is it the coverage gap? Is it inaccurate data or analytics? Is it the need to transition to the cloud? Nope – those are minor by comparison.

According to the U.S. News Millennial Report 2014 (cheers to The Actuary for reporting it), 22% of the largest demographic likely to buy insurance in the coming decade claim to somewhat understand insurance. Yes – 78% of people in their 20s and early 30s don’t even somewhat understand insurance. Yikes.