Willis commits $1m to resilience modelling and mapping forum
Broker Willis has unveiled a $1 million commitment to help mobilise a global resilience modelling and mapping forum to address natural catastrophe risk.
The forum is a collaboration between the global re/insurance industry and other partners, set up to enable the tools and techniques of insurance risk modelling and stress testing to be shared with wider business and society to increase risk understanding and resilience.
The announcement was made by Dominic Casserley, chief executive officer of Willis, to an audience of more than 500 business leaders convened by British American Business, a transatlantic business organisation.
Casserley said: “In partnership with the global scientific community, the re/insurance sector has made enormous progress in understanding and managing natural hazard risks over the last two decades.
“The resilience modelling and mapping forum will help open up risk evaluation and early warning systems to all, reducing the damage of extreme weather and helping institutions and communities to close the protection gap.
“For me, there is no more critical time than now for business leaders to collaborate creatively on the challenges our societies face. The task is urgent because the world is getting riskier. Natural catastrophes and their ravages are part of our world. It is therefore incumbent on us to take these growing threats much, much more seriously.
“It is also clear that today we have the means to address these perils in ways that are new and powerful. The forum is an important part of this.”
Willis has already led a range of efforts to promote resilience on several levels, including the UN-endorsed 1-in-100 initiative, which promotes using stress tests to help public companies and institutions better understand their financial exposure to natural disaster risk, creating an incentive for organisations to address these growing challenges.
Willis also aided in the development of the award-winning African Risk Capacity programme, which brings sovereign drought protection to populations in a growing number of nations across the continent.
