Catastrophe Risk Appetite

Catastrophe risks by their nature are low risk but high impact. Insurers have been grappling with the impacts of the Canterbury and Kaikoura earthquakes. GNS and Geonet publish statistics on the likelihood of significant earthquakes to our capital.

How do we take a complex problem where we don't have a great deal of experience and use this to determine an Insurer's risk appetite to the risk from catastrophes?

Christian Barrington will re-present his paper that provides a suggested framework to take Management and the Board through to determine what is their true appetite. And what it would mean to go through a more extreme event than the RBNZ 1:1000 year event.

The suggested framework has been used and underpins capital, reinsurance and underwriting decisions.