A number of the world’s biggest players in re/insurance have committed additional funds to support the development of open source catastrophe modelling platform Oasis.
Companies include Aon, Allianz, AXA, Chubb, Guy Carpenter, Hannover Re, Lloyd’s, RenaissanceRe, Swiss Re, SCOR, Willis Re and the Insurance Development Forum.
The supporting international re/insurers and brokers have committed additional funds and resources in excess of $2 million over two years.
The funds will be used to help enable Oasis to further maintain and grow the community of providers and users of its software, models, data, and tools.
The Insurance Development Forum (IDF) is also providing funding to ensure that public sector use cases are included in project design, as part of its programme to accelerate finance-aware risk insight in developing markets.
“The global approach to risk modelling is changing,” said Oasis Chief Executive Officer Dickie Whitaker.
“The support we are announcing from the industry today signals a shift away from non-standardised data, high costs and ‘closed box’ approach, to a future shaped by powerful tools that offer a more transparent, robust and comprehensive approach for analysing, understanding and pricing risks from extreme natural catastrophe events, including the impacts of climate change.
“This renewed industry support will see Oasis develop the fastest, most feature rich, performant and reliable catastrophe modelling platform available – and not just for first world economies, our open-source software has been designed for developing countries as well. It is truly game-changing.”
Helen Attenborough, Executive Managing Director for Analytics Software & Product Development at Reinsurance Solutions, Aon, noted, “Open catastrophe modelling ecosystems are critical as Aon continues to work with clients to develop a bespoke view of catastrophe risk.
“This enables insurers to gain greater confidence in their understanding of data assumptions and loss drivers while enhancing their ability to manage their unique portfolios and effectively transfer risk.
“By backing Oasis in collaboration with Impact Forecasting’s catastrophe models, we are excited to bring more choice to insurers – coupled with transparency and customisation – to help them better quantify natural catastrophe risk in an efficient way.
Swiss Re CUO Thierry Léger, commented, “Oasis is an open source platform that we fully support as an addition to our proprietary tools. With its principles for standardisation, modularity and transparency, the Oasis platform is a catalyst for improving collaboration in the Cat modelling universe.
“This translates into expanded access to a greater diversity of risk views and risk models, enabling the ability to leverage the right model for the right purpose. Swiss Re has been supporting Oasis for many years and is now investing even more to push Oasis to the next level.
“In parallel, we have built flexible access routes for Oasis models that complement Swiss Re’s longstanding proprietary NatCat modelling framework.”
Jean-Paul Conoscente, CEO, SCOR P&C, added, “Oasis forms an important component of SCOR’s multi-model platform strategy, and we fully support this latest development of leading-edge cat modelling technology which should accelerate the industry’s use of open source CAT models.”
