Dr. Phil Klotzbach, Ph. D., from the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, says climate change is real. In a recent interview he explained that “if you go back to the late 1800s, parts-per-million of carbon dioxide was about 280; now we're sitting at about 420. We've gone up by about 50 percent of what we were about 140 years ago. With that, we've seen a global temperature rise of about eight- or nine-tenths of a degree Celsius … about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Dr. Matt Hinds-Aldrich, Senior Risk Strategy Lead at AAIS and fire peril subject matter expert, recently joined Tom Louis from First Due to discuss why the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) still matters and why it needs to improve to meets the needs of the 21^st century fire service. Watch the entire discussion here:

Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid and can target both individuals and businesses. The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform shared that “in 2020, ransomware attacks on both public and private institutions in the U.S cost an estimated $19.5 billion. … in the first six months of 2021, financial institutions reported $590 million in ransomware-related transactions. Current trends indicate that ransomware transactions in 2021 alone will exceed the previous 10 years combined.”

With the holidays and the end of the year upon us, it is the time to reflect upon the past year. And it is the time of year we tend to think about coming together, as a community, to share our experiences. In our case, I’m referring to AAIS’s product-focused advisory councils.

Severe weather, especially wildfire and flood, is increasing across the United States. This is exacerbated by climate change with no reduction in sight. At the same time, cyber criminals, not limited by geography, can invade our homes and businesses from anywhere in the world. Insurers facing this triple threat to homeowners are keenly aware of the trends:

Cyber security is a pressing issue. With daily advancements in technology comes the need for a game of rapid catch-up in the security sector. Every day there are new products and solutions to help protect us from this growing threat. The challenge within the insurance industry is how to underwrite this constantly evolving risk.

Research from NASA points to several factors that support climate change from rising sea levels to warming oceans and glacial retreats. The effects of climate change have a significant impact on the insurance industry, which generates considerable premium, expense, and losses based on insured catastrophes. As these events become more unpredictable and severe, the industry must adapt.

The AAIS Pulse newsmagazine recently featured a discussion with experts from Munich Re, Berkley Re Solutions, and AAIS hosted by AAIS Vice President of Products John Kadous on the emerging risks affecting policyholders in the homeowners market. The focus was on the evolving threats around cyber, fire and flood and how they’re being impacted by climate change, technology and more.

Risk Management Service Inc. (RMS) estimates $25 billion to $35 billion in onshore and offshore insured losses in the Gulf of Mexico alone were caused by Hurricane Ida. This doesn’t include the damage to other parts of the country. While the fundamentals of hurricanes are widely understood these days, there remain several important nuances to hurricane losses that are essential to understand for insurers, regulators, and the general public alike. Here we will look at one less understood type of claim from hurricanes – slab claims.

Flood insurance has long been primarily administered by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which has 5.1 million policies in force. But the landscape for flood insurance – and who needs it – is changing. This was the topic of an AM Best webinar that included Linda Jancik, AAIS Personal Lines Product Manager, Serena Garrahan, Vice President, Inland Flood Product Manager at Munich Re US, and Rob Olson, Senior Research Analyst at International Risk Management Institute (IRMI).