Catastrophe insurance data firm PERILS to include Australian motor

Zurich-based catastrophe insurance data firm PERILS is extending its line of business reporting to include Australian motor for personal and commercial lines.

The company will include Australian motor as part of its Industry Exposure Update to be released in April 2020. It will make available market-wide motor sums insured exposed to earthquakes, floods, tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones, hailstorms and bushfires in Australia via its database. These are the same perils currently covered for the property line of business.

PERILS it will provide event loss data for any events above a market loss of A$500m caused by these respective perils, for property and motor market losses combined.

PERILS said that it will continue to collect property sums insured, but in addition will include motor sums insured and motor event loss data from primary insurers in Australia per postcode (high-resolution CRESTA Zones). Based on the collected data, PERILS produces an independent and objective data set of market exposures (total sums insured) and market event losses. This information can be used for a range of applications, including for industry loss-based risk transfer products such as Industry Loss Warranties and Insurance-Linked Securities and for catastrophe risk model validation.

Luzi Hitz, CEO of PERILS, said: "In addition to Canada, Australia will be the next market for which PERILS provides motor exposure and loss reporting. We are particularly grateful for the support we have received from the primary insurance industry in Australia to add motor going forward as without this it would not be possible. We believe it is yet another enhancement to our offering to fulfil our mission to increase data availability and transparency in the field of natural catastrophe insurance and to also enhance the availability of capacity into this important market."

Darryl Pidcock, head of PERILS Asia-Pacific, commented: "PERILS has been covering the Australian market for nearly three years during which time we have been increasingly asked by the industry to provide motor exposure and loss data. This enhancement will be the first time that motor exposure and loss data is available in the Australian market. Motor is a major line of business in the Australian market and is a significant contributor to losses, as we observed in more recent events such as Sydney Hailstorms in December 2018 and the Australian Hailstorms in January 2020.”

Liberty Mutual Re (LM Re), part of Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, has appointed Dan Carroll to the role of senior underwriter for aviation treaty reinsurance.

Carroll joins from AXIS where he was underwriting manager for its aviation D&F account and was involved in purchasing outwards reinsurance programme.

Based in London, Carroll will report to Hans Towler, head of aviation. He will be responsible for underwriting, along with assisting with portfolio management/optimisation, new business and product development, business planning, and developing client and broker relationships.

Peter Smith, executive underwriting officer at Liberty Specialty Markets said: “I’m delighted that Dan is joining the aviation reinsurance team. His deep knowledge of the aviation insurance market, strong technical background and extensive relationships with major aviation clients will be invaluable to us as we seek to broaden our client base and product offering.”