The Risks of Hazard

At Intermap Technologies we write about the ever-changing landscape of insurance, government, and natural catastrophe. Because of the pending reauthorization plans for the NFIP (H.R.1423 - National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2017) currently working its way through Congress, our most recent blogs have been centered around flood.

This week’s blog features a recent video from AM Best TV, and a podcast from InsNerds.com. First the video.

The Risks of Hazard is going to try something new in January 2017, and we need your help, gentle reader.

As regular readers of The Risks of Hazard know, this blog focuses on the primary underwriting of cat risk, and the benefits of better underwriting that can be realized by insurers and society at large. Thus, catastrophe bonds are a topic that rarely come up in our discussions. However, the protection gap does (and does and does!). When The Intelligent Insurer published this paragraph-length headline - ILS Leads the Way ... and May Help Closing the Protection Gap - it was inevitable that cat bonds would make their debut in the blog.

Cat bonds, or Insurance Linked Securities (ILS), are far removed from the act of underwriting a cat risk – in fact, they are at opposite ends of insurance. Cat bonds are the final divestment of risk from the insurance industry into capital markets, (unless they bypass insurance completely, as with the MetroCat cat bond), while underwriting is how the risks get into the industry. Granted they are so far apart, how does underwriting relate to cat bonds?

Earlier this year, we introduced the concept of the butterfly chart at the Risks of Hazard. To quickly summarize what the butterfly chart is, there are two distinct opportunities for underwriters to grow flood premium each forms a wing of the butterfly.