#344 Networks Under Water: Transport, Flooding and Resilience

Engineering Matters

When flooding happens, damage and disruption ripples out across assets and infrastructure. Private businesses and homeowners can insure themselves against direct damages to buildings. But the impacts on the local economy go much further: debris can block transport networks, causing businesses to fail and reducing tax revenues, at a time when increased local government spending is needed to finance recovery.

New approaches to public sector insurance can provide cash for debris removal and infrastructure repairs. Parametric insurance pays out within days when specific conditions—flooding depth, rainfall—are met, without the need for damage assessment.

To purchase adequate cover, and to build resilience ahead of incidents, local governments need to have a clear understanding of the risks they face. In New Jersey this spring, Fathom provided catastrophe modelling tools to Grid Advisors, who employed them within a systems engineering analysis, to understand the risk to assets owned by the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

In this episode, Grid Advisors’ Rallis Kourkoulis joins Fathom’s Peter Slater and Olivia Sloan, to explain how this analysis is developed and used. Jackie Higgins, head of public sector solutions for Fathom’s parent company, Swiss:Re, in the US, describes the challenges facing local authorities, and how the insurance industry can support their resilience planning and risk assessment.

Guests

Peter Slater, account manager, engineering and the public sector, Fathom

Jackie Higgins, head of public sector solutions, North America, Swiss:Re
Rallis Kourkoulis, managing partner, Grid Advisors

Olivia Sloan, catastrophe model product manager, Fathom

Partner

Fathom gives risk management professionals the most scientifically robust intelligence to understand the climate’s effects on water risk. By publishing cutting-edge peer-reviewed academic research and applying it to real-world challenges, Fathom enables stronger decision-making for (re)insurance, civil engineering, corporate risk, financial services, disaster response and government.

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