Reinsurance News

Flood insurance and reinsurance news

News related to flood insurance and reinsurance, including: new products and market innovation; flood insurance market loss events; companies underwriting flood insurance or reinsurance; public flood insurance through the NFIP; and the expanding availability of private market flood coverage.

BIBA scheme aims to expand UK commercial flood insurance availability

21st March 2017

The British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) is aiming to expand the availability of flood insurance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in flood risk areas not served by the government-backed Flood Re initiative, via a new commercial scheme that could increase the need for reinsurance protection. Executive Director of BIBA, Graeme ... Read the full article

FEMA calls for flood insurance expansion via private markets and NFIP

20th March 2017

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official, Roy Wright, has underlined a need to expand flood insurance protection across the U.S., supported by the multi-year reauthorisation of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and growing interest for participation from insurers and reinsurers. Addressing the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs ... Read the full article

JLT Re partners with KatRisk for flood risk modeling

20th March 2017

Reinsurance brokerage and advisory JLT Re has partnered with KatRisk, a specialist flood risk modeller, to help it bring enhanced flood risk modeling capabilities to its client base. KatRisk is a specialist in the flood risk model space, with tools offering flood inundation maps at multiple return periods as well as ... Read the full article

Trump’s budget proposes scrapping funding for NFIP flood maps

16th March 2017

President Donald Trump's first proposed budget includes a measure that would scrap all funding for the National Flood Insurance Program's Flood Hazard Mapping Program. The Flood Hazard Mapping Program sees the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) working to identify flood hazards, assess flood risks and work alongside states and communities to ... Read the full article

Flood risk privatisation back on the U.S. political agenda

13th March 2017

The Housing and Insurance Subcommittee met recently to discuss the state of the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and potential reforms, including the opportunity for the private sector to develop an effective private flood risk insurance market. The development of a private flood risk insurance and reinsurance market in the U.S. ... Read the full article

Validus finds up to 15% of NFIP flood policies attractively priced

9th March 2017

Bermudian insurance and reinsurance company Validus Group has said that after analysing the National Flood Insurance Program's risk profile, the re/insurer deems that it would underwrite as much of 15% of the risk on its own balance-sheet. It's a clear indication that the private insurance and reinsurance market is ready and ... Read the full article

Palomar gets first successful rate filing with AIR U.S. flood model

15th February 2017

Specialty insurer Palomar has used AIR Worldwide’s U.S. probabilistic flood model to obtain a first-ever successful rate filing for flood. Palomar has become the first admitted firm to successfully offer a stand-alone residential flood insurance product in California, after its first-time launch of AIR’s flood model, Flood Guard. The programme was first released by ... Read the full article

MS Amlin the first Lloyd’s syndicate to underwrite backed by Flood Re

15th February 2017

Global specialty insurance group MS Amlin has become the first Lloyd's of London syndicate operator to underwrite homeowners policies backed by the government's flood reinsurance scheme, Flood Re. MS Amlin signed up with the UK Government backed Flood Re to support its underwriting of flood risks assumed through mid to high ... Read the full article

JBA opens U.S. office with new models for flood risk

14th February 2017

Natural hazard modelling services provider, JBA Risk Management, has opened its first U.S. office in response to demand for what it's called a gap in the insurance and reinsurance sectors' knowledge of sophisticated U.S. flood risk assessment. Despite floods consistently falling amongst the highest ranking causes of insured losses globally, and being the most prevalent ... Read the full article

A third of total catastrophe losses in 2016 from flooding: Aon Benfield

17th January 2017

Reinsurance broker Aon Benfield named flooding as 2016’s top risk in its 2016 Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report released today. 2016 was the fourth consecutive year where flooding was the costliest global peril -  at $62 billion it caused nearly one-third of the $210 billion global economic losses. After flooding, the reinsurance broker listed ... Read the full article