Managing insurance risk to catastrophic events has always been important: Hurricane Andrew taught us some lessons about natural hazards; WTC taught us about cross-class accumulations and Katrina/Rita/Wilma forced the industry to re-examine the way we use catastrophe loss models and how we address uncertainty in all it’s guises.

There are now thousands of people within the global (re)insurance industry who work exclusively on the challenges of monitoring and managing accumulations of risk and assessing catastrophe loss potential using in-house and 3rd party modelling tools. In late 2006, the International Society of Catastrophe Managers (ISCM) was formed to provide a focal point for the community of practictioners, with a longer term ambition of structured education programmes, and ultimately development of a professional qualification for Catastrophe Risk Managers. In under a year, over 300 individuals have paid their $100 annual dues and many have attended regional meetings held in New York, Zurich and most recently at the Lloyd’s Old Library in London (20th July, 2007). Topics on the London members’ agenda included exposure data standards & ‘open-source’ modelling, with the next round of regional meetings scheduled for October.

While the majority (~70%) of current ISCM members are based in the US (the largest insurance market), interestingly almost 1 in 5 members works in one city: London. The successful launch of the ISCM and the clear desire of ‘cat managers’ to further develop skills and professionalism in this important area of the business can only be welcomed.

This entry was posted by Paul Nunn on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Exposure Management.