As weather-related insurance losses fluctuate across Europe, WTW and the University of Exeter are entering a new phase of their long-running research collaboration focused on windstorm risk.
Now in its 20th year, the partnership is moving towards understanding how climate variability over the next five to 10 years could influence storm activity and related insurance exposures.
The collaboration will explore how seasonal and decadal climate signals may help forecast windstorm patterns more effectively, offering a potential basis for revisiting catastrophe modelling approaches used by insurers and reinsurers. Existing models often rely on either limited historical datasets or long-term climate projections.
The research aims to address the uncertainty that exists between those two timeframes by analysing the short-to-mid-term effects of climate fluctuations on storm frequency and severity.
Windstorms remain among the most financially disruptive weather events in Europe, with annual insured losses swinging significantly due to storm clustering and variability.
Recent examples, including Storms Poly, Eunice and Éowyn, have prompted further examination of assumptions around storm timing and geographic exposure.
This new phase of research will examine how those assumptions might be adjusted using emerging insights from climate prediction systems.
Dr. Daniel Bannister, weather & climate risks research lead at WTW, said that nearly two decades of collaboration have focused on advancing industry understanding of windstorm risk.
“The focus now is on what the climate will bring over the next five to ten years, and how we can use emerging signals to help our clients make better-informed decisions,” said Bannister.
The partnership, which began in 2006, has been led on the academic side by Professor David Stephenson from the University of Exeter. Over the years, the team has introduced modelling techniques such as storm clustering simulation and methods for estimating wind gust return values. These outputs have been incorporated into WTW’s risk analytics platform and continue to evolve alongside new research.
Stephenson said the collaboration has contributed to both industry applications and academic inquiry, with practical risk challenges prompting the development of new scientific questions.
“Cutting-edge ideas from climate and statistical science have been used to address key industry challenges, and these challenges have in turn inspired interesting new research areas such as storm clustering,” said Stephenson.
By focusing on near-term climate variability, the partners aim to provide insurers and reinsurers with tools to examine how worst-case scenarios may develop within the next decade — and how those scenarios may differ from historical trends or long-range forecasts.
What impact do you think short-term climate modelling could have on insurance pricing and capital strategy? Leave a comment to share your insights.
