Catastrophe Modeling Pioneer Clark Advises on Insurers’ Best Practices

Karen Clark & Co. in Boston has started providing reviews of company internal catastrophe risk assessment and management processes to help companies ensure they have holistic risk management processes that comply with best practices.

Holistic risk management practices incorporate independent benchmarks and metrics to assess the quality of catastrophe model input and output.

Karen Clark & Company was formed by Karen Clark, who developed the first hurricane catastrophe model and in 1987 founded the first catastrophe modeling company, Applied Insurance Research (AIR) which subsequently became AIR Worldwide Corp. after acquisition by Insurance Services office in 2002.

“In meetings with dozens of companies over the past several months, I found incredible demand for a recognized, independent review process. Even companies that have already developed extensive internal processes want a team of independent experts to review those processes,” said Clark. “The IMARC reviews also provide a way for external stakeholders such as rating agencies and investors to better differentiate companies based on the relative quality of their risk management processes and their exposure data.”

Her firm’s independent reviews cover what she says are the five most important components of an effective risk management process—preparing the exposure data, benchmarking the exposure data, performing the model analyses, benchmarking the model-generated loss estimates, and applying the model results. The comprehensive independent review, trademarked as IMARC, Independent Metrics for the Assessment of Risk from Catastrophes, provides company management with an assessment of each component of the internal process along with recommendations for improvements.

Source: Karen Clark & Co.
www.karenclarkandco.com

Topics Catastrophe Carriers Risk Management