KCC brings new multi-peril winter storm model to the market

Catastrophe modelling firm Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has developed a new multi-peril model for US winter storms using physics-based methodology to accurately measure loss potential which is 'challenging' but 'critical' to capture.

The new US winter storm reference model is designed to capture winter storm loss potential from three sub-perils - snow and ice, freezing temperatures, and high winds.

According to KCC, winter storms cause nearly $3 billion in insured loss annually on an average, with potential of causing over $20 billion in extreme events - making it "critical" to capture their impacts accurately.

“Winter storms are challenging to model, both due to their meteorological complexity and the different perils possible within each storm,” said Glen Daraskevich, KCC senior vice president.

Sara Sienkiewicz, KCC senior meteorologist, said: “To model winter storms accurately, KCC scientists combined advanced numerical weather prediction (NWP) data and techniques with historical winter storm climatology. The model incorporates different classifications of winter storms, not just your typical Nor’easters, but also Arctic high-pressure systems because freezing is known to be incredibly damaging.”

Daniel Ward, senior meteorologist, further explained: “The benefit of using NWP is that we can capture the specific atmospheric conditions that lead to each sub-peril. We’ve reproduced 35 historical events and generated over 19,000 additional events with NWP techniques to create a stochastic event set that represents potential future winter storms that are meteorologically feasible but have not yet occurred. For each event, three high resolution footprints are generated: one for snow and ice accumulation, one for wind, and one for freeze.”

The new model is implemented on the RiskInsight open loss modeling platform. It includes live event coverage, which insurers use to anticipate their claims and losses from actual storms as they are unfolding. Chris Mossey, vice president of client development, noted that KCC meteorologists monitor the daily weather and develop event footprints for major events so insurers can proactively track the annual aggregate losses from winter storm activity against their portfolio of risks.

Tom Libassi, co-founder and managing partner of ILS Capital, commented: “KCC consistently brings new models to the market that result in more accurate and reliable loss estimates, and we’re looking forward to using the new winter storm model. The KCC models provide insight into the geographic spread of our risk to specific perils and lets us visualize areas where we might be vulnerable to large losses using the tools built into RiskInsight.”