Hailstorm Loss Modelling and Risk Assessment in the Sydney Region,Australia

This paper summarises work undertaken at the Natural Hazards ResearchCentre with regard to the compilation, climatological analysis and lossmodelling application of hailstorm data for the greater Sydney region. Itdiscusses the results from two associated research areas: ENSO-relatedclimatological analysis of hailstorm data, and insurance sector orientedrisk assessment of hail losses in the Sydney basin. The two complementaryprojects led to the development of HailAUS, the first hail loss model for amajor urban area in Australia. The hazard occurrence module of the hailloss model is based on a comprehensive, good quality hail data set, whoseinterannual variability has previously been analysed with regard to the ENSOsignal. The paper presents the major results of the local hail data climatology,and outlines the structure of the hail loss model. The important practicalapplications that result from the collection and analysis of good qualityclimatological data are noted.     

Storm catastrophes in the United States

A unique historical data set describing the 142 storms each producing losses in excess of $100 million in the United States during the 1950–89 period were analyzed to describe their temporal characteristics. The storms caused $66.2 billion in losses (in 1991 values), 76% of the nation's insured storm losses in this period. These extreme storm catastrophes (SCs) were most prevalent in the south, southeast, northeast, and central U.S., with few in and west of the Rocky Mountains. Storm incidences were high in the 1950s, low in the 1960s-early 1970s, and increased in the 1980s. Losses due to SCs peaked in the 1950s, again in the late 1960s, with a lesser peak after 1985. The areal extent of storm losses peaked after 1975 and was least in the 1960s. The temporal variations of the three storm measures (incidence, losses, and extent) did not agree except when they all peaked in the 1950s. Regionally-derived time distributions of SCs showed a marked north-south differences in the United States with a U-shaped 40-year distribution in the northern half of the nation, and a relatively flat trend until a peak in the 1980s in the southern regions. The temporal distributions of hurricane-caused catastrophes differed regionally with occurrences in the prime areas, the southern, southeastern, and northeastern U.S., each quite different. Temporal distributions of thunderstorm and winter storm catastrophes were regionally more uniform.     

Multi-scale remote sensing to support insurance policies in agriculture: from mid-term to instantaneous deductions

ABSTRACT

Climate change is today one of the biggest issues for farmers. The increasing number of natural disasters and change of seasonal trends is making insurance companies more interested in new technologies that can somehow support them in quantifying and mapping risks. Remotely sensed data, with special focus on free ones, can certainly provide the most of information they need, making possible to better calibrate insurance fees in space and time. In this work, a prototype of service based on free remotely sensed data is proposed with the aim of supporting insurance companies’ strategies. The service is thought to calibrate annual insurance rates, longing for their reduction at such level that new customers could be attracted. The study moves from the entire Piemonte region (NW Italy), to specifically focus onto the Cuneo province (Southern Piemonte), which is mainly devoted to agriculture. MODIS MOD13Q1-v6 and Sentinel-2 L2A image time series were jointly used. NDVI maps from MODIS data were useful to describe the midterm phenological trends of main crops at regional level in the period 2000–2018; differently, Sentinel-2 data permitted to map local crop differences at field level in 2016 and 2017 years. With reference to MODIS data, the average phenological behavior of main crop classes in the area, obtained from the CORINE Land Cover map Level 3, was considered using a time series decomposition approach. Trend analyses showed that the most of the crop classes alternated three phases (about 7 years) suggesting that, presently, this is probably the time horizon to be considered to tune mid-term algorithms for risk estimates in the agricultural context. Crop classes trends were consequently split into three phases and each of them modeled by a first-order polynomial function used to update correspondent insurance risk rate. Sentinel-2 data were used to map phenological anomalies at field level for the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons; shifts from class average behavior were considered to locally and temporarily tune insurance premium around its average trend as described at the previous step. Synthesizing, one can say that this approach, integrating MODIS and Sentnel-2 data, makes possible to locally and temporarily calibrate premiums of indexed insurance policies by describing the average trends of crop performance (NDVI) at regional level by MODIS data and refining it at field and specific crop level by Sentinel-2 data.     

茶叶寒冻害天气指数保险设计

以茶叶萌芽至展叶期寒冻害为突破口,利用1987—2016年福建省泉州市安溪县17个自动气象站2—4月的逐日气象数据及安溪各茶树种植区产量数据,确定茶叶寒冻害的天气指数保险气象指标,分析日极端最低气温与茶叶减产率的关系,建立了茶叶寒冻害指数模型。计算安溪不同区域茶叶种植区不同等级寒冻害的发生概率,应用纯保费率方法厘定了保险费率,并根据福建省政策性农业保险的实际情况,制定茶叶不同区域种植区寒冻害指数保险触发条件、赔付标准,设计了安溪县茶叶寒冻害天气指数保险合同。设计的茶叶寒冻害天气指数保险产品以客观气象数据作为定损依据,可以为茶农提供一种有效的风险转嫁方式,也为保险公司增加新险种提供了技术支撑。     

Study on financial loss and its adjustment in earthquake insurance

Introduction Earthquake often brings large catastrophe to the mankind, especially in recent years when a large number of destructive earthquakes occur in the whole globe, which have caused tremendous casualties and losses to the people. Obviously, it is not very reasonable to make up financial losses and carry out post-seismic reconstruction by the government only for such kind of huge earth- quake losses. Therefore, as an effective measure to raise fund and make up financial losses, earth- qu…     

The role of social norms in climate adaptation: Mediating risk perception and flood insurance purchase

Flood insurance plays an important role in climate adaptation by recovering insured losses in the event of catastrophic flooding. Voluntary adoption of flood insurance has been seen as a function of risk perception that is shaped by social norms. This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between these factors. It is based on a household survey conducted in the eastern cities of Australia and involving a total of 501 randomly selected residents. Results of a path analysis show that the likelihood of having flood insurance cover was associated with perceived social norms, but not perceived flood risk. In addition, perceived norms and risk were statistically related to each other. It is concluded that social norms played a mediating role between insuring decision and risk perception. Risk perception might influence the insuring decision indirectly through shaping perception of social norms. This implies that adaptive behaviour is not necessarily a function of risk perception, but an outcome of its impacts upon the ways in which the individuals situate themselves in their social circles or the society. There is a feedback process in which individual perceptions of risk manifest as both a cause and effect, shaping and being shaped by the socio-cultural context.     

粤港澳大湾区保险业发展水平时空演变特征及对经济增长的影响

保险业在中国经济发展、转型和产业升级等方面发挥着越来越重要的作用。论文利用粤港澳大湾区2006—2019年的市级面板数据,运用熵权、核密度估计和空间计量等方法,研究粤港澳大湾区保险业发展水平时空特征及其对经济增长的影响,结果表明：① 保险业发展水平综合指数在波动中上升,11个城市保险业发展水平呈现香港、澳门和广州单核领跑大湾区东、中、西部的特征,珠三角9市呈现广州、深圳和珠海单核领跑广佛肇、深莞惠和珠中江三大经济圈的特征;② 11个城市保险业发展水平存在两极分化现象,但高值区与低值区的绝对差异有缩小趋势,低值区城市之间的差距有扩大趋势;③ 保险业发展对本地区经济增长产生了显著的正向影响,在其他影响因素保持不变的情况下,保险业发展水平每提升1%,本地区经济增长0.0538%。保险业发展具有负溢出效应,但未通过显著性检验。研究成果为粤港澳大湾区相关部门制定保险业与经济发展相互促进的产业政策提供了理论依据。     

气象服务在促进内蒙古政策性农业保险事业发展中的作用

文章在分析国内外农业保险发展现状的基础上,结合内蒙古农业气象观测站网建设和气象为农服务业务开展现状,阐述了气象服务在农业保险业务发展中的作用和优势,为我区各级气象部门开展政策性农业保险服务业务提供了思路。     

Financing loss and damage: reviewing options under the Warsaw International Mechanism

After decades of pressure from vulnerable developing countries, the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (the WIM) was established at the nineteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 19) in 2013 to address costly damages from climate change. However, little progress has been made towards establishing a mechanism to fund loss and damage. The WIM's Executive Committee issued its first two-year workplan the following year at COP 20 which offered, among other things, a range of approaches to financing loss and damage programmes, which we review here. We provide brief overviews of each mechanism proposed by the WIM ExCom, describe their current applications, their statuses under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), some of their advantages and disadvantages, and their current or potential application to loss and damage. We find that several of these mechanisms may be useful in supporting loss and damage programmes, but identify some key gaps. First, most of the mechanisms identified by the WIM ExCom are insurance schemes subsidized with voluntary contributions, which may not be adequate or reliable over time. Second, none were devised to apply to slow-onset events, or to non-economic losses and damages. That is, if harms are inflicted on parts of a society or its ecosystems that have no price, or if they occur gradually, they would probably not be covered by these mechanisms. Finally, the lack of a dedicated and adequate flow of finance to address the real loss and damage being experienced by vulnerable nations will require the use of innovative financial tools beyond those mentioned in the WIM ExCom workplan.

Key policy insights

• Despite a full article of the 2015 Paris Agreement devoted to loss and damage, there is little international agreement on the scope of loss and damage programmes, and especially how they would be funded and by whom.

• Most of the loss and damage funding mechanisms identified by the WIM ExCom are insurance schemes subsidized with voluntary contributions, which may burden the most vulnerable countries and may not be reliable over time.

• None of the mechanisms were devised to apply to slow-onset events, or to non-economic losses and damages.

     

河南省森林火险月季尺度定量客观化预测

基于火灾资料和气象资料,利用数理统计方法和百分位法,分析了河南省林区火灾的气候特征及防火关键期高火险日数的月、季气候特征。结果表明,林区火灾次数年际波动较大,主要出现在每年的冬春季(12月次年4月),3月出现的次数最多,2月的次之。火灾峰值主要出现在13-16时。3月高火险日数存在显著增加的线性趋势,12月和1月高火险日数呈现先减少后增加的趋势。2月和4月高火险日数处在偏少的年代际背景下。林区春季高火险日数存在显著增加的线性趋势,在桐柏-大别山林区尤其明显。选取河南省防火关键期各月、季高火险日数与海温、积雪、环流场等130项环流指数的相关关系最好的因子,利用最优子集回归分别建立基于林区内各个气象站点的预测方程。通过回代检验和趋势异常综合评分(Ps),对回归方程预测效果进行检验,结果显示,回代曲线和历史曲线吻合好,表明预测方程预测结果接近实况。