Fathom-US 2.0 maps 100% of the US mainland and is the first model of its kind to account for future climate change scenarios.
It represents a paradigm shift in flood risk understanding for the insurance and reinsurance sectors, as well as for those involved in insurance-linked securities (ILS) for whom climate change in particular impacts the exposure held by investments.
As highlighted in an article by Artemis, the groundbreaking dataset and the enhanced intelligence it can provide is “certain to be of interest to insurance and reinsurance markets, as flood and water-driven losses continue to rise.”
Journalist Steve Evans goes on to discuss how flood risk is an “increasing concern for the insurance and reinsurance industry, both in how it is understood as well as the rising losses experienced over recent years and also in how more of it can be underwritten by the private market.”
He added that “It’s equally a rising concern on the insurance-linked securities (ILS) space, as ILS funds are increasingly assuming flood reinsurance exposure, especially coastal flood and surge risk from wind storms such as hurricanes. The ILS market has also assumed direct flood risk through FEMA’s FloodSmart Re flood catastrophe bond series of deals.”
Additional coverage included Reinsurance News, which highlighted how Fathom-US 2.0 incorporates data from more than 50,000 synthetic hurricanes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to reflect increasing storm severity and their impact on both inland and coastal flooding, vital if US insurers are to avoid the devastating financial losses caused by previous hurricanes.
