2025 Virtual Climate Risk Seminar

A Forecast of Change – Navigating Climate and Migratory Pattern Changes in Home Insurance

Description:
Over the past several years, climate-related trends have had a significant impact on insurance companies and consumers alike. As different climate patterns have emerged over the past several years, the evidence is compelling: the warmest six years on record have occurred since 2015; eight of the 10 largest wildfires in California history have occurred since 2017;The number of strong storms is increasing; and Hurricane Ian—with damages worth an estimated $113 billion—was the third costliest hurricane in U.S. history and just one of the 18 separate billion-dollar disasters in 2022. Exacerbating the risks brought about by climate-related trends is a recent demographic trend: migration within the U.S. More consumers are migrating to areas with higher weather-related risks. When one considers all the new dynamics in play, there is little doubt that climate change insurance risk is intensifying, and the insurance industry must understand these changes in order to adapt. This discussion will highlight the migratory and climate changes affecting the U.S. and quantify the impact to insurance carriers.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand climate and migratory trends impacting the industry.
2. Understand what the potential long-term impact could be based on these trends.
3. Understand what the potential long-term impact could be based on these trends.

Speaker:
Vincent Wei – Zishen (Vincent) Wei is a Manager of Data Science at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, insurance business. Vincent has 10 years of experience working with insurance data, and 8 years of tenure at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, generating actionable insights for carriers and creating data-driven solutions. Vincent is a hands-on manager of a group of data scientists, and avid researcher on statistics and machine learning techniques that push for next level model performance while maintaining consistency and interpretability. Vincent joined LexisNexis Risk Solutions in 2016 after graduating with a master degrees from Georgia State University. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Statistics from Jinan University, Master's degree of Actuarial Science, and Master's degree of Mathematical Risk Management from Georgia State University.

Location, Location, Location: Importance of Geocoding Accuracy in Pricing Natural Catastrophes 

Description:
We will demonstrate the importance of accurate geocoding in classifying catastrophic risk, including the particularly sensitive perils of wildfire and flood. This will include exploring how geocoding works, why not all geocoding results are “created equal,” and how to address limitations with geocoding. We will also discuss why wildfire and flood are such localized perils, with risk varying greatly between relatively close locations. Finally, we will consider other implications of understanding an exposure’s accurate location, such as underwriting and managing concentration.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the geocoding process, how to interpret the results, and important limitations
2. Understand drivers of flood and wildfire risk, particularly small-scale, local factors
3. Understand the importance to property insurers of knowing accurate location information for their insured risks

Speakers:
Mia Wafer – Mia is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analyst with Milliman’s San Francisco Property & Casualty Practice. She helps develop and manage the practice’s GIS databases and performs geospatial analyses to produce customized datasets to support rate making and climate resiliency planning. Mia’s areas of expertise include geocoding applications for insurance and spatial analyses utilizing hydrographic and elevation datasets for actuarial modeling. She has been with Milliman since 2023 and has a MS in Earth Science from Montana State University.
Paul Rosing, FCAS – Paul is an actuary with Milliman's San Francisco / Tri-State Property & Casualty practice. His work centers on insurance ratemaking and predictive modeling, particularly for flood-exposed property risks. He has developed rates for both personal and commercial lines of business using a variety of data sources and a blend of actuarial and data science techniques. His work leverages Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data and catastrophe model output to improve rate development and underwriting processes. Paul joined Milliman in 2024 and is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

Property Insurance Resiliency and Disclosure

Description:With property insurance markets becoming increasingly unstable due to a myriad of global megatrends, we discuss the situation and steps can actuaries take to supporting insurers to measure vulnerability and develop actionable strategies to enhance resiliency across their insured populations? How might insurers begin to think about creative solutions that bring in others impacted organizations to support? We will also discuss the evolving climate and nature-related regulatory disclosure environment and increased awareness of the need for disclosure of risk mitigation and adaptation plans.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the key trends leading to reduced resiliency across communities nationwide
2. Identify key steps an actuary can take in helping to shape a response towards building greater resiliency
3. Understand the benefits of developing an adaptation or mitigation plan and associated disclosure requirements

Speakers:
Gloria Asare, FCAS, FCIA, MAAA – Gloria Asare is a property and casualty actuary with nearly 15 years of experience. She graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School in 2010, with a Bachelor's of Science in Economics and a Concentration in actuarial science. She started out her career doing commercial lines pricing for traditional and specialty lines - working with AXA XL in Philadelphia, New York, and eventually headed up their pricing team for Canada in Toronto. Gloria then joined the Risk Modelling Services (RMS) team at PwC Canada as a Director where alongside two others, she oversees a team of approximately 40 P&C actuaries. The team helps their clients with various P&C issues they are facing spanning climate, model risk management - including AI validation -, and pricing services in addition to audit and appointed actuary support.

Gloria gives back to the actuarial community by volunteering her time with the CAS, CIA, and IABA. She was awarded the CAS New Members Award and the SOA Partner Volunteer Award in 2021. In addition to her professional accomplishments, she is also a happy wife and mother to three children.

Adam Kallin, FCAS – Adam is a director in PwC’s Climate Risk Modeling practice. He has more than 14 years of experience, and has most recently focused on helping companies across industries understand the impact to climate, nature, and biodiversity of their economic activities. In addition, he has significant experience in helping financial services companies assess and quantify climate risk in support of TCFD disclosure. He has also supported multinational P&C insurers in development of TCFD-aligned climate strategy. Outside of client work, he co-developed PwC’s portfolio decarbonization accelerator, and also led PwC’s response to PCAF’s “Public Consultation on Global GHG Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Insurance Industry”.

Adam also has long background in property and casualty reserving and has significant experience in designing and implementing IFRS 17 programs for insurers. Adam has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Florida and is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

Model Citizens

Description: Professionalism considerations and case studies involving the use of models in climate change actuarial work.

Learning Objectives:

1. Familiarize with ASOPs 38, 39 and 56 and their applicability to actuarial work in Climate Change modeling, pricing and reserving.
2. Explore your obligations regarding the use of, reliance on and implementation of models in Climate Change-related actuarial work.
3. Apply your learnings to realistic scenarios via case studies.

Speakers:
Esther Becker, ACAS, MAAA - Esther has served as the managing consultant to a variety of self-insured organizations and insurers. Prior to becoming a consultant in 2011, Esther served as a regional actuary for large insurance carriers, performing pricing, model development, profitability reviews, regulatory filings, systems development and underwriting guideline setting. Esther also served in the US and UK as an alternative risk underwriter.

Esther serves on the CAS Professionalism Education Working Group, leads its document review subcommittee and was its former volunteer Chairperson. She is a frequent speaker at CAS, RIMS and other industry events.

Mike Speedling, ACAS, MAAA, CPCU, CRMA - Mike Speedling is a Director of Internal Audit at AXIS Capital. He has over 40 years of actuarial experience working in the property/casualty industry for insurance companies, consultancies and rating bureaus.

Mike serves on the CAS Professionalism Education Working Group and the CAS CE Compliance Working Group. He is an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society (ACAS), a Chartered Property/Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), and a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA).

How to Incorporate Climate Models from Engineering

Description: This is a one-hour presentation session with time for Q&A. In this session, you will learn about climate risks and how to interpret different climate model outputs. We will also discuss modeling uncertainties and their value. This presentation will shed light on incorporating projected climate data into premium calculations while adequately considering modeling uncertainties. We bring cutting-edge climate change research from the field of engineering to the actuarial industry. We hope actuaries find these models useful for their applications.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand climate models, climate data, and key terms.
2. Describe, discuss, and compare various climate model outputs.
3. Communicate more effectively with colleagues about integrating climate data.

Speakers: 

Lu Liu, PhD - is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at ISU. Dr. Liu believes that satisfying the demand for water, energy, and food under changing environment and socioeconomics is a central challenge of the 21st century. With a civil engineering background, she utilizes state-of-the-art climate modeling to address pressing climate-related issues and develops quantitative tools to support informed decision-making and policy formation primarily in the water sector.

Cameron MacKenzie, PhD - Cameron MacKenzie is an associate professor in the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering (IMSE) at Iowa State University (ISU) in fall 2015 as an assistant professor. Cameron’s graduate courses in Decision Analysis and Engineering Risk Analysis satisfy requirements for the Industrial Engineering degree as well as the Systems Engineering and Engineering Management degrees. He teaches simulation (including Simio software) as part of the undergraduate course Stochastic Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation.

Cameron’s research focuses on decision and risk analysis, with three main thrusts: (i) homeland security and emergency management, (ii) engineering design and manufacturing, and (iii) supply chain risk management. He has been actively involved in the hazard mitigation and community resilience research group headed by Professor Sri Sritharan, and the group has been focused on integrating engineering, the social sciences, and scientific machine learning within the area of community resilience. Cameron worked with Professor Eva Regnier on designing a web-based simulation tool to help the U.S. Marines Reserve Forces practice making decisions in advance of a hurricane. He has analyzed the economic impacts caused by the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and he has developed a resource allocation model to help an economic region recover from a disaster like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Before coming to Iowa State, he was an assistant professor in the Defense Resources Management Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School, and he previously consulted in the areas of defense and homeland security for former Defense Secretary William Cohen. He received his BS and BA from Indiana-Purdue University at Fort Wayne (2001), an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University (2003), an MS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University (2009), and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Oklahoma (2012).

Rahul Parsa - Rahul Parsa is a Teaching Professor of Finance at the Ivy College of Business.

• Ph.D. in Statistics, Texas A & M University, 1990
• M.Sc. (Applied Mathematics), Osmania University, Hyderabad, India, 1981
• B.Sc. (Honours) Osmania University, Hyderabad, India, 1979
• Additional course work in Statistics, University of Arkansas, 1983-85

Rahul serves as the Director of the Actuarial Science Program and teaches actuarial science and business analytics courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is an Academic Correspondent for Casualty and Actuarial Society.

Dr. Parsa’s current research is focused on: 1) Cyber Security, 2) Copulas, 3) Data Mining, and 4) applied research in applications of statistics to other disciplines. Dr. Parsa is the author/co-author of numerous journal articles and research grants. He has published articles in professional journals in insurance, actuarial science, science safety, data confidentiality, data mining, and copulas. His articles appeared in journals such as Variance, Communications in Statistics, Proceedings of the Casualty Actuarial Society, and Management Science. He received a Fulbright scholarship in 2004 that enabled him to travel to South Africa and teach at the University of Kwa-Zulu, Natal.

He previously was the Principle Financial Group Distinguished Professor for the School of Actuarial Science at Drake University. He also served as the School of Actuarial Science director and took the program through its first Center of Actuarial Excellence Designation.

Sri Sritharan – Dr. Sri Sritharan is the Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering and serves as the Assistant Dean for Research in the College of Engineering at Iowa State University (ISU). His research expertise includes designing structures to withstand extreme events such as earthquakes and high winds, evaluating structural performance through large-scale testing, and advancing design practices by contributing to updates in design codes and standards. Dr. Sritharan has published extensively in leading journals and has been recognized for his contributions by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, and the American Concrete Institute. He is also a member of the team currently designing the world’s largest tornado testing facility.