Artemis Live interview: Inflationary pressures & catastrophe claims. What to expect

For our latest Artemis Live video interview we wanted to explore inflationary trends and their potential to impact on the catastrophe claims process, as well as throw up some unexpected results when losses happen. So we were joined by Mike Fulton, President of Xactware and Tom Johansmeyer, Head of PCS, to discuss inflationary pressures and what they might mean for the industry.

Given inflation is now emerging in the broader economy, we wanted to dive into this hot topic, covering inflationary pressures, material prices and labour costs, to explore how this could factor into catastrophe claims for the insurance, reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) industry in 2021.

Inflation is big news currently, with some economists expecting a sustained period of price increases and inflationary pressures around the world.

There are several factors causing this, not least effects from the COVID-19 pandemic to supply chains, as well as some that are specific to different locations and regions of the world.

But for the insurance, reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, materials, labour and other costs have in some cases risen significantly, which has ramifications for catastrophe events and possible loss amplification to claims.

To help me dive deeper into this issue, we spoke with two senior Verisk Analytics executives with years of experience on the claims-side of the market, Mike Fulton, President of Xactware and Tom Johansmeyer, Head of PCS.

Fulton explained the current situation, “We’re in new territory. This has not happened in the past, even in my thirty years in the business.

“We’re seeing inflation in several areas, some of that is significant and we certainly expect additional inflationary growth in both material and labour for the near-term.”

Fulton went on to explain what’s driving some of these trends, with lumber costs one of the most evident areas of materials that the insurance, reinsurance and ILS industry needs to keep an eye on, saying that “Lumber seems to be the poster-child of inflation, because that kicked us off, but we’re starting to see significant price increases in steel and other metal goods, plastics and other replacement products such as roof shingles.”

Johansmeyer explained that this is a particularly hot-topic for the industry at this time, “It’s interesting, because we’ve been getting calls about this for almost a year now.”

He advised market participants to ensure they have the access to data that’s required to help in understanding how inflationary pressures could play into catastrophe claims.

“It’s important to look at PCS alongside Xactware, because we’ll (PCS) tell you what the cat is doing, we’ll help you understand what your portfolio is doing. But as you dig into that, it’s the granularity that you see with Xactware, which is literally as close to the risk as you can get, that provides those sorts of insights.”

“We are getting a lot of phone calls right now about lumber pricing and what that could mean for this year’s hurricane season.”

This interview features a discussion of what these inflationary pressures mean and how reinsurance and ILS market participants may deal with the effects of it, including hedging, retrocession and other portfolio management opportunities.

The full video interview is embedded below and can also be viewed in full, along with previous Artemis Live video interviews, over on our YouTube channel.

You can also listen in audio to our interviews by subscribing to the Artemis Live podcast here.

All of our Artemis Live video interviews have a focus on reinsurance, ILS and the efficiency of risk transfer and can be accessed directly from our YouTube Channel.

You can also listen in audio to these interviews by subscribing to the Artemis Live podcast here.

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