Midway through a year of global change, it’s not surprising that companies across the world are paying renewed attention to interconnected risks. The dual themes of Climate and Geopolitical risk have provided fresh challenges in 2024 and it is especially important that we continue to consider the wider risk landscape alongside those key risks. There is no shortage of risks where planning may be out of date, impacts not fully recognised, or potential threats compound each other. To understand this better, we are currently collecting responses to support WTW's Emerging and Interconnected Risk Survey, designed to help our clients identify their emerging risks, the actions that other organizations are taking, and what emerging risks other industries have on their list. We would love your views.
2024 has affirmed a new normal across natural catastrophe risk. Extreme flooding, record breaking wildfires and significant earthquakes have driven tens of billions of dollars of losses already. Ahead of the release on July 18 of WTW’s Natural Catastrophe Review for January to June 2024, our 2024 Natural Catastrophe seminar program will delve into some of the significant events that have marked the first half of the year. We are excited to host Dr. Guy Schumann and Chloe Campo from RSS-Hydro, who will discuss the recent wildfires in Texas, examining the roles of climate change and human factors. Dr. James Done from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will provide his insights on the current North Atlantic hurricane season, forecasted to be significantly above average. In this newsletter we also feature insights from Erica Thompson, who helps us rethink our use of catastrophe modeling, and we provide downward counterfactual analysis of the April New York earthquake to explore "what-if it had been worse" scenarios.
This quarter we are delighted to announce new research projects that will focus on the quantification of security impacts from climate change. Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE) and senior research fellow at the Center for Climate & Security; and Ida Rudolfsen, a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) will support WTW’s advisory services on key security aspects of climate change, which are often overlooked, and rarely quantified. Q2 also saw the launch of the WTW Risk and Resilience review. Supporting the WTW smarter way to risk and written with WRN partners, this report introduces expert research and opinions that give new perspectives across topics including supply chain, organizational resilience, geopolitical events and emerging risks. Finally in the geopolitical world the latest episode of Geopolcast focuses on political risks in the oil and gas sector and the undeniable struggles this crucial industry is currently facing.
As always, thank you for reading and please do get in touch with any questions.
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Events in 2024 have underscored the ongoing challenge of natural disasters, emphasizing the critical need for proactive mitigation strategies in a world shaped by climate change and urban growth. Our Natural Catastrophe webinar program continues to bring together multi-disciplinary expertise from the WRN and across WTW to explore these events.
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It’s critical to know where your organization stands when it comes to benchmarking your emerging risks and risk management actions against the market. We want to hear from you. How do your emerging risks and actions compare with those of your peers?
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Welcome to the WRN Risk & Resilience Review, a biannual publication created with WRN partners that brings insights and event response to topics influencing organizational and societal risk.
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Are severe convective storms becoming more common? WTW-sponsored research picks out those U.S. regions where tornado outbreaks have trended upwards in recent decades.
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Privately-owned critical infrastructure, businesses and citizens cannot opt out from geopolitics and are critical to “whole of society” preparedness.
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A rapidly escalating geopolitical storm of political, economic and social disruptors is challenging established international norms and regimes, leading to increased turbulence across the full risk landscape.
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A recent Mw4.8 earthquake near NYC caused mild shaking but no severe damage, highlighting the city's overlooked seismic risk. This article explores "what-if" scenarios, emphasizing the importance of preparedness for potentially worse future outcomes.
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For effective risk management, insurers require a catastrophe model evaluation framework that focuses on past performance, expert judgements, consistency in confidence levels, and a well-defined attitude to model risk.
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Recent advances in generative AI promise to change how (re)insurers approach scenario development. Given the rapid evolution of this technology, what might the future hold?
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Ensuring that buildings adhere to national building codes is often a labor-intensive, error-prone, and time-consuming process. This study utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to directly interpret raw building blueprints. By leveraging computer vision and deep generative models, the research offers a comprehensive, flexible, and highly efficient approach to managing building fire risks.
