Guy Carp launches probabilistic hail model
As recent insured losses from hail events in Europe have reached record levels, Guy Carpenter has launched a probabilistic hail model for Europe.
The broker said that The G-Cat Hail Model features a “unique approach to producing historic hail tracks using a lightning detection system developed for Guy Carpenter by atmospheric research firm nowcast GmbH.”
The model is currently available for Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland and Slovenia, and will be extended to a number of other European territories in 2015.
Mark Weatherhead, head of catastrophe model development at Guy Carpenter, said: “There is no direct way of measuring hail intensity over broad scales and so the challenge is to find a good proxy measure of hail occurrence that can be used on a consistent basis over the entire area of interest.
“To this end, we have formed a partnership with nowcast GmbH who are using leading-edge technology to track the occurrence of those lightning parameters that best reconstruct the possible occurrence of hail in a storm track. We are very excited to be part of this collaboration, especially as it is producing very interesting data to use as a basis for the hazard component of our model.”
Max Strasser, project leader for the G-CAT Hail Model, said: “While much of the focus is on the larger perils such as windstorms and floods, hail is a major European peril responsible for high attritional losses in many countries. In a bad year hail can be the largest source of loss in some places. Hailstorm Andreas which occurred in Germany in July 2013 generated an industry loss in excess of $3 billion, but we don’t know if this is at the extreme tail-end of the range or something we could expect on a more regular basis.
“Experience-based approaches can only take us so far, and so we have invested in this new fully probabilistic model to allow us to properly explore the possibilities and provide a more comprehensive view for our clients.”
Massimo Reina, chief executive officer of Continental Europe and MENA, added: “Understandably our clients are very interested in managing the hail peril and so our new model allows them to take a view on hail across their entire European portfolio.”
