This workshop will facilitate a national, interdisciplinary scientific research discussion on modeling and managing climate change risks between three different but related research communities: the climate modeling and data community, statisticians, and researchers within the insurance and reinsurance industries. This workshop will be aimed at active scientific researchers in each community, with the goal of sharing perspectives, methods, and databases; defining gaps of existing research; and formation of actionable research paths which can only be addressed by teams which are new, collaborative and interdisciplinary. It will be held November 8 and 9, 2018, at The Collider in Asheville, NC.

1. The Nexus of Climate Data, Insurance,
and Adaptive Capacity
Rob Erhardt
Wake Forest University
SAMSI Transition Workshop, May 2018

2. Insurance in a Climate of Change: Evan Mills
1996 - 2013(ish).
Funded by EPA, Department of Energy, Ceres (NGO)

3. Insurance in a Climate of Change: Evan Mills
• 72 published papers and reports: http:
//insurance.lbl.gov/pubs.html
• Mills, E. 2005. ”Insurance in a Climate of
Change,” Science Vol. 308, Issue 5737,
pp.1040-1044. 12 August
• Mills, E. 2012. ”The Greening of
Insurance,” Science 338, 1424 (invited)
• Also Forbes, Reinsurance Magazine,
Climatic Change, UNEP Finance
Initiatives Quarterly, Contingencies:
Journal of the American Academy of
Actuaries, IPCC Reports, etc.

4. “Insurance is a form of adaptive capacity.”
(Mills 2005)
• “Can insurers extend their
self-chosen historical role in
addressing root causes (as
founders of the first fire
departments, building codes,
and auto safety testing
protocols) to one of preventing
losses at a much larger scale,
namely, the global climate?”
(Mills, 2005).

5. Workshop: The Nexus of Climate Data, Insurance,
and Adaptive Capacity
• November 8 and 9, 2018
• Held at The Collider in Asheville, NC
• Funded by NSF SES DRMS 182439

6. The Organizing Committee
• Rob Erhardt, Associate Professor, WFU (PI, Chairperson)
• Jesse Bell, Research Scholar, CICS-NC at NOAA NCEI
• Brian Blanton, Director of Environmental Initiatives, RENCI
• Frank Nutter, President, Reinsurance Association of America
• Megan Robinson, Chief Operations Officer, The Collider
• Richard Smith, Professor UNC-CH, Assoc. Director of SAMSI

7. • “The Collider is a nonprofit innovation center focused on
catalyzing market-driven climate solutions”
• Downtown Asheville, N.C. within walking distance to
NOAA/NCEI, hotels, restaurants, etc.

8. Confirmed Invited Speakers
Deke Arndt, M.S.
Chief,
Climate Monitoring Branch,
NOAA’s National Centers for
Environmental Information
Jennifer Jurado, Ph.D.
Chief Resilience Officer and
Director,
Environmental Planning and
Community Resilience Division
Broward County Government

9. Confirmed Invited Speakers
Roy Wright, M.P.A.
President & CEO,
Insurance Institute for Business
& Home Safety
Former Deputy FEMA,
Former Director NFIP
Doug Nychka, Ph.D.
Institute Director,
National Center for Atmospheric
Research

10. Confirmed Invited Speakers
Stephanie Herring, Ph.D.
Climate Scientist,
NOAA
Others addressing the the topics
of:
• Climate and Health
• Extreme Values
• Catastrophe Modeling

11. Workshop: Concepts
• Time scales for decision-making and available data
products
• Sources of uncertainty in climate data products
• Statements of ideal climate datasets and model
projections from the perspectives of all research
communities
• Extreme events as both a statistical challenges and a
primary driver of losses in insurance and reinsurance
• Sub-grid cell phenomena such as hurricanes
• Data-fusion of historical weather data products, climate
model output, and insurance loss databases

12. Workshop: Breakout Discussion Groups
Ample opportunity for discussion, with a designated lead and a
designated notetaker.
• Current data products and use in insurance
• Climate projections and their use in insurance
• Extreme events
• Climate and health
• Flood risks and FEMA
• (others proposed by attendees)

13. Workshop: Next Steps
• Conference discussions will result in a submission to
Journal of Risk and Insurance of the American Risk and
Insurance Association (ARIA), or similar journal
• Funding available to assist “early career researchers”
(graduate students, those in first few years of full-time
research position)
• Funding available to assist travel costs for
under-represented communities
• (Inquire with Rob Erhardt, erhardrj@wfu.edu)

14. Thanks
“Certain measures that integrate climate change mitigation
and adaptation can simultaneously reduce insurance losses.”
(Mills, 2005)
Acknowledgments: Many thanks to: Society of Actuaries,
Casualty Actuarial Society, Reinsurance Association of America,
NSF, SAMSI