Small-scale weather events have a substantial cost too

insurance claims related to water-related weather events, like rainfall and snow-melt », Dr. Rohrbeck explains. « Current statistical models exhibit substantial limitations and fail to explain the weather dynamics leading to large monetary losses. The modelling is challenging due to complex nature and regional differences in the risk process, where the latter are related to geographical variations in climate, topology and socio-economic factors ». To illustrate this, he explains that « a certain amount of rain might be dangerous for one city and safe for another ». «  The models thus need to account for spatial variations. In other words, they need to be focused, and  deal with a wide range of statistics at the same time, », he continues. The flexible and rigorous, but computationally efficient, alternative statistical methods the aims to develop will help achieve this.

Better risk models for small-scale weather events

Dr. Christian Rohrbeck will develop his new methodology by building on the research conducted during his PhD and on two of his scientific papers from last year. He will extend the approaches produced then and create new ones, in order to successively reach the following aims : model the association between the number of claims and weather-metrics, between claim sizes and weather-metrics and assess the impact of climate change on property insurance claims. The performance of these models will be assessed based on an insurance data set which covers all Norwegian municipalities.

Both small and large weather related insurance costs are rising due to global warming and climate change. « Large aspects of society and the economy are weather-sensitive, and insurances against undesirable weather events are an important economical factor », Dr. Christian Rohrbeck stresses. In this sense, his project will have a important impact on the scientific community, as well as in the area of public debate. Not only will his output profit the insurance industry and stimulate new research, it will also inform politicians and decision-makers about how they should prepare for the future.