RMS launches new windstorm model

Risk Management Solutions (RMS) recently launched a new platform for quantifying wind-related risk. Meteorological modeling has been extended to include a comprehensive suite of wind events enabling loss calculations both from large-scale Extra-Tropical winter-storms, such as windstorms Anatol, Lothar and Martin in 1999, as well as from smaller-scale summer thunderstorm events, such as the Birmingham Tornado in 2005. The model, which quantifies wind risk in 12 European countries, has also been extended to include Norway, Austria and Switzerland, allowing seamless modeling from Ireland in the west across Scandinavia to Germany and Switzerland in the southeast.A pioneering combination of numerical and parametric modeling is used to capture the windfield structures typical of European windstorms. This modeling methodology also served to develop a full set of possible windstorm events with realistic tracks, frequency and severity distributions over a long-term simulation, essential for a fully probabilistic assessment of windstorm risk. RMS has been evaluating the use of numerical modeling technology and its applicability to catastrophe modeling for several years, according to Dr. Steve Jewson, head of the RMS Climate Hazards modeling team. “Numerical modeling is a highly powerful tool to help reconstruct past meteorological events at high-resolution and understand the development and life-cycles of these complex events,” Jewson says. Although Jewson explains that statistical modeling is “the best way” to generate large event sets beyond the historical record, he says it is still reliant on numerical weather prediction technology. He says that RMS’ blend of both approaches offers a solution to the challenges of using this technology.Recognizing that U.S. and Caribbean hurricane landfalls are expected to be above the long-term mean for the next five years due to increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin, RMS also analyzed the historical record and meteorological data archives.The new model includes high-resolution hazard calculations, employing RMS’ Variable Resolution Grid technology, as well as updated modules for the classification and wind-resistance of properties, and total financial exposure. An additional loss-amplification module, consistent with that currently being applied to other third-generation RMS models, is included to consider factors such as economic demand surge, claims adjustment and inflation, the economic impact of reconstruction, and cascading catastrophes that can occur in major metropolitan areas.