Description: Heavy Precipitation in the U.S. Southeast, and Dry Conditions in California This report highlights major weather stories that unfolded across the month of February 2020.

Description: Crop insurance plays an important role in mitigating food production disasters and keeping a robust food production system in the United States. Crop insurance increases stability in food and fiber production, smoothing variability which would otherwise occur because of weather patterns and changes in international trade regulations and markets. Stability increases the ability of farmers to make long-term investments that increase production efficiency and keep productive land in agriculture.

Description: The SOA Research Institute Catastrophe and Climate Strategic Research Program released a report that explores the shifting geography of Lyme Disease in the U.S. and beyond and some of the potential determinants of its spread. Lyme Disease is a well-known disease particularly in the eastern U.S., and it is also prevalent in other geographies. This report researches the complex relationship between climate variables and the spread of Lyme Disease in the United States.

Description: We summarize some of the developments in corporate sustainability. The guiding principles of corporate sustainability are developed on the global stage, but implementation of these principles necessarily occurs at the individual company level. Our aim is to educate actuaries on the broad principles, point curious readers towards more research, and inspire actions that actuaries can take within their organizations to strengthen the long-term sustainability of the industries that actuaries serve.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Research Institute’s new report examines how inland flood risk and loss may change across the U.S. in the future because of climate change. The AIR Inland Flood Model for the U.S. and the AIR Hurricane Model for the U.S. were used to evaluate how changes in flooding will impact insurable losses in the future.

Description: This report examines weather conditions for daily maximum temperature (TMAX), drought conditions, and snowfall that are extreme in an historical context. The report also examines the early eighth named storm to make landfall in the U.S. (Hurricane Nicholas), ahead of the eighth landfall storm of 2020, which had a record 11 named landfall storms for the year.

Description: This report provides results from a recently conducted study using the AIR Wildfire Model for the United States and available climate and climate change information to estimate how climate change may influence wildfire losses to U.S. property by mid-century. The climate change conditioned catalogs were used to evaluate climate change impacts (relative change in losses) to the AIR Worldwide US Industry Exposure Database, with all factors other than area burned held constant.

Description: The research provides a modeling framework for assessing the inundation risk of properties and their expected flood damages, thereby laying a foundation for flood insurance pricing. The researchers studied over 50 years of claims data from the National Flood Insurance Program with 2.5 million records and identify property characteristics that predict flood damages for inundated properties. The development of a private flood insurance market hinges on insurers’ ability to better understand and price flood risk. This research takes a closer look at flood risk modeling and flood insurance pricing.

Description: This report will endeavor to introduce the reader to some of the known and developing environmental risks that impact the business of insurance, with a specific focus on North American risks.

Description: This article examines the property losses sustained by homeowners and the economic losses sustained by insurance companies and government agencies due to California wildfires.