(Image credit: David Mark.)

Guy Carpenter & Company (New York) has licensed the full suite of Karen Clark & Company’s (KCC, Boston) catastrophe models and risk management applications. Guy Carpenter is the first intermediary to obtain access to KCC’s RiskInsight and its risk metrics and capabilities.

“Our partnership with KCC represents a meaningful step change in giving our clients choice as they consider and embrace a different future,” comment Rob Bentley, CEO, Guy Carpenter Strategic Advisory. “KCC’s innovative, contemporary suite of natural peril models, software, visualizations and scientific approaches will enable our clients to confidently make important and transparent business decisions across a breadth of underwriting, portfolio management, and risk transfer use cases.”

“Over the past several years, KCC has partnered with market leading (re)insurers who have informed our advanced modeling technology, and we’re looking forward to this new partnership with Guy Carpenter and the potential it brings to their extensive global client base,” comments Karen Clark, KCC CEO. “Guy Carpenter is a market leader with an impressive team of catastrophe modeling experts who will be able to fully leverage the KCC models and applications to their clients’ advantage.”

“The KCC models are based on advanced science and engineering knowledge,” adds Clark. “The science has been implemented in a way to provide greater insight into large loss potential and to answer questions, such as where an insurer can have surprise and potentially outsized losses relative to competitors and how to drive complex portfolios to desired returns while staying within risk tolerances. These are questions of particular importance to insurance company CEOs and boards.”

Commitment to Innovation, Accuracy, Transparency and Client-Centricity

“KCC has demonstrated commitment to innovation, accuracy, transparency, and client-centricity,” adds Guy Carpenter’s Bentley. “We found that the representation of natural hazards has been thoughtfully implemented, reflecting consistent high-resolution spatial coverage, and that model event sets are comprehensive across perils and geographies.”

“KCC models capture all claims caused by natural hazards and not just those defined as catastrophes,” comments Glen Daraskevich, SVP, KCC. “This is particularly important for the higher frequency perils such as severe convective storms and wildfires, which while they may not threaten an insurer’s solvency, can eat away at earnings year after year. Insurers want to make sure they fully understand and have the tools to manage the potential for the aggregation of small claims as well as large loss potential.”

The KCC models are open and transparent enabling Guy Carpenter’s professional teams to more efficiently validate the models, according to Bentley. “Further, with the RiskInsight platform, Guy Carpenter has the ability to build and benchmark client portfolios, develop proprietary custom models and more deeply analyze risk using KCC’s modeling approaches,” he says. “These capabilities allow us to accelerate innovation and deliver more granular insight to clients.”

Paradigm Shift in Approach to CAT Modeling

“KCC and Guy Carpenter share the view that the (re)insurance industry is ready for a paradigm shift in the current approach to catastrophe modeling,” comments Peter Hearn, President and CEO, Guy Carpenter. “This new partnership provides the platform from which we can now expedite the inevitable and desirable changes in the catastrophe modeling industry.”

“Guy Carpenter shares our vision of more accurate models and more efficient modeling processes through transparency and openness, along with the value of more modern technology and insightful new risk metrics,” adds Clark. “They are a great partner for us in delivering new capabilities and advanced models to the marketplace.”

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