The award aims to identify published research and reward researchers that have contributed to innovation and a better understanding of risk in insurance. More specifically, they look for candidates who can demonstrate the significance of their research and its potential applications within insurance.

This year the themes were Cyber, Reputation, Geopolitics, Climate Change and Pandemics; entrants were assessed by judges on the following criteria:
– Relevance to the insurance industry.
– Quality of communication in the summary and published paper.
– Financial significance – risks that might translate into large profits or losses will be ranked higher.
– Novelty – new risks or significant new information on old risks will score well.
– Quality of research.
– Ease of uptake for insurers – for example papers with accompanying open models will score well.
Having submitted his entry in January, Oliver Wing’s proposal focused on ‘Toward Global Stochastic River Flood Modelling’ published in 2020. The paper explored the applicability of global hydrological models to the problem of defining the spatial correlation between catchments. When operationalised within our global flood model, this research greatly expanded our ability to predict losses due to extreme flood events within catastrophe models.
Dr Wing will today attend and present at the awards conference today.