China Reinsurance Group (China Re) has launched its earthquake catastrophe model at its catastrophe risk and insurance summit held in Chengdu.
The earthquake model was developed in cooperation with state-level scientific research institutions such as the Institute of Geophysics and the Institute of Engineering Mechanics of the China Earthquake Administration Institute. It simulates a total of over three billion seismic incidents across China and surrounding countries for five million years.
The launch coincided with the 10th anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, also known as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The tremblor reached magnitude 8.0 and killed almost 70,000 people. It is considered the 21st deadliest earthquake of all time.
The insurance summit (pictured) was attended by over 140 leaders and experts from government departments, industry organizations, insurance companies, and research institutes from all over China and was presided by He Chunlei, executive vice president of China Re Group.
According to Yuan Linjiang, chairman of the China Re Group, in the decade since the massive quake, China has continuously sought to improve its disaster prevention and management capabilities, which includes catastrophe re/insurance.
“[We] adhered to the idea of emphasizing on reinsurance as the core business of China Re and actively played an important role in the national disaster system construction,” he said.
In mid-2017, China Re opened the country’s first catastrophe research facility, which aims to develop new technologies and services to strengthen China’s catastrophe re/insurance system.
