Dealing with the Extra-Ordinary: managing and financing large-scale risks in a new era of catastrophes

The conference will take place at Sciences Po, from 5.00 to 7.00 PM. (Please note that the conference will be in French.)

Some keep arguing that disasters have always existed and that we should not pay more attention to them than before. The reality, however, is radically different. The natural disasters that have occurred during the past few years have exposed us to an entirely new scale of devastation due to increased development in hazard-prone areas. Out of the 20 most costly insured disasters that occurred in the world between 1970 and 2007, half of them (ten) happened just in the past 6 years, nine of which in the United States.

In the aftermath of Katrina, the Wharton Risk Center in Philadelphia launched a large initiative, in conjunction with Georgia State University in Atlanta and the Insurance Information Institute in New York City, along with 16 leading insurance, reinsurance, banking, and defense industry companies. The presenter will share some of the results of this multi-year effort; a series of in-depth analyses of the efficiency and equity of current disaster insurance and mitigation programs in the U.S. market (Florida, Texas, New York and South Carolina) and its state-based regulatory environment, and their impact on loss distributions between different stakeholders. The study focuses specifically on hurricane risk and flood hazard and on protection to homeowners.