RMS updates U.S. hurricane, Asia quake models. Hires MD for Asia-Pac & Japan

Catastrophe risk modelling specialist RMS has announced a raft of risk model updates, including to its U.S. hurricane model and Asia earthquake models, while also announcing a new Managing Director for Asia-Pacific and Japan.

RMS said that it is releasing updates to its view of hurricane risk across hurricane-impacted countries in the North Atlantic basin, as well as new views of earthquake risk in Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

These catastrophe risk model updates incorporate RMS’ latest methodologies and take into account the firms latest research on hazard, vulnerability and financial modeling enhancements. All updates will be delivered on version 18.1 of RMS’ RiskLink and RiskBrowser risk management software.

RMS said it has added updates to long-term and medium-term hurricane event rates, new historical event reconstructions from recent hurricane seasons, and vulnerability enhancements informed by new data and RMS building research to its U.S. hurricane model.

The company said this, “enables RMS to continue to comply with the hurricane standards of the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology, while providing the (re)insurance market with an expansive suite of modeling tools that reflect the most up-to-date view of the Atlantic hurricane risk landscape.”

RMS explained that the update does include insights gained from the recent hurricane years, including the all-important 2017, saying, “The updated Medium-Term Rates for v18.1 are informed by hurricane activity through the 2017-2018 seasons.”

On the Taiwan earthquake model update, RMS said, “The RMS Taiwan Earthquake Model reflects the latest science on earthquakes and on building performance to best support risk management practices for this region of high seismic risk.”

On the release of new earthquake models for the countries of Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia, RMS said it reflects new market and scientific insights.

Given these southeast Asian economies are among the world’s fastest growing, the building stock and exposure in the region is expanding rapidly.

Hence, regularly updated catastrophe risk models are vital in this region and RMS notes that following a 2017 update, this version 18.1 Southeast Asia Earthquake models build on those enhancements and factor in new and expanded market data, market feedback, and improved data sets.

“This comprehensive, new view of risk serves a wide variety of use cases ranging from location-level pricing and primary underwriting applications, through pricing of per risk facultative reinsurance, and management of exposure aggregations, to understanding portfolio-level tail risk across multiple countries,” RMS explained.

In addition, RMS has announced the addition of updated geocoding for all U.S. models in version 18.1, and has increased the amount of high-resolution building data as well, to provide users with improved views of the hazard they are modelling.

Finally, RMS has also announced the hiring of a new Managing Director for the Asia-Pacific region and Japan.

Andy Woodhouse has been appointed to the role and joins RMS from Temenos, a banking software firm.

In that role Woodhouse was Regional Services Director, prior to which he was Head of Product and Business Development at Bloomberg, and Managing Director at global financial technology firm Real Time Systems. He has also gained experience as a Managing Director at SunGard Global Services, Banking Industry Director at Oracle and Director of Financial Management Solutions at Peoplesoft. He will be based in Hong Kong, where he lives.

Neil Isford, Executive Vice President, RMS, commented, “Asia Pacific is a critical growth area for RMS and our clients. This is reflected in our commitment to not only delivering and updating an increasing suite of models for the region, but also in the caliber of the staff we have working with clients. Andy has over 20 years of experience in successfully building teams across this region to sell and implement software-based solutions, and I know that his experience and enthusiasm will be of great benefit to all our Asia Pacific clients.”

Mohsen Rahnama, Chief Risk Modeling Officer, RMS said: “We have continued to build and develop our model offering in this important region across over the past years as can be seen in the new models and model updates. Version 18.1 is a further proof point that the RMS model suite stays abreast of the latest science, methodologies and technology in risk analysis. RMS is committed to delivering the best quality models and science to the market and V18.1 delivers on this.”

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