PERILS, an independent Zurich-based organisation that provides industry-wide catastrophe insurance data, has celebrated its 10-year anniversary as it reported the success of a major industry initiative.
PERILS said the scale of the data which supports the PERILS initiative continues to grow over the past 10 years, with more than 150 national insurance companies, or over two-thirds of the property insurance premium written in PERILS-covered territories, currently providing PERILS with natural catastrophe exposure and event loss data.
“Our initial aim was to secure the support of between 40% and 50% of the primary insurance industry in each country,” said Luzi Hitz, CEO at PERILS. “That we are now close to 70% across a much broader range of territories demonstrates the ongoing market value of our initial proposition and the continuing demand for what we provide.”
To date, PERILS has generated 44 industry loss footprints based on actual claims data collected from insurers, representing 15.6 million individual claims and a combined industry loss figure of US$33.1 billion. The company has also produced more than 100 market exposure portfolios based on collected sums-insured information, which represents a total of US$74.7 trillion of catastrophe-exposed sums insured spanning 219 million insurance policies.
PERILS also reported that a core component of its initiative, the facilitation of industry-loss-based risk transfer, has exceeded its initial expectations, with US$17bn of risk capital have been placed across Europe, Australia, Canada, and Turkey.
PERILS said there is still significant potential for growth, due to the importance of reliable exposure and loss data for improved catastrophe understanding and risk assessment.
“There is no reason why PERILS cannot expand to become a truly global data provider if the industry demand for the data we provide is there,” Hitz said. “We know that there are many more countries that can benefit significantly from the service we provide and are currently working on several fronts to add further territories to the PERILS Exposure and Loss Database. And of course, we are open to discussions with insurers in other geographies.”
