AIR Worldwide (AIR) has appointed Dr. Roger Grenier as Senior Vice President of Global Resilience, an AIR practice that aims to help close the gap between insured and uninsured economic losses by assisting social risk resilience initiatives worldwide.
Grenier said; “I’m extremely excited to join AIR to further develop the company’s public risk strategy.
“I look forward to assisting governments and nongovernmental organisations to strengthen their emergency management programs and help them prepare for natural and man-made catastrophes before disasters strike.”
AIR said its Global Resilience helps organisations in applying catastrophe modelling to disaster risk financing.
It also establishes alliances with organisations to share data and advance the science of modelling and help strengthen relationships with regulatory bodies and rating agencies globally.
Grenier boasts 20 years of experience working directly with global risk models and was formerly director of catastrophe research and development at Liberty Mutual, where he was responsible for developing the Liberty view of catastrophe risk and developing techniques to evaluate non-modelled catastrophe risk worldwide.
Rob Newbold, executive vice president, AIR Worldwide, commented on the appointment; “as evidenced by our long history of working with an array of governmental and nongovernmental organizations around the world, AIR is well positioned to inform public disaster financing and other risk reduction initiatives.
“We’re pleased to have Dr. Grenier lead our global resilience practice by leveraging his vast catastrophe modeling knowledge and expertise in global risk management.”
According to an AIR report, global economic losses from catastrophes average roughly $345 billion annually, of which less than 20% are insured.
The severe hurricanes, wildfires, and other record-setting disasters of 2017 further highlighted the extent of the protection gap problem, raising the stakes in the debate over catastrophe resilience with only a small percentage of home and business owners in Houston carrying flood insurance, and Maria’s impact leaving Puerto Rico in recovery mode for months, or years, to come.
