Insurance and Catastrophes

Dr Peter Taylor

This talk looks at the way financial losses associated to catastrophes can be mitigated by insurance, what insurers mean by catastrophe and risk, and how computer modelling techniques have tamed the problem of quantitative estimation of many hitherto intractable extreme risks. Having assessed where these techniques work well, I will analyse why they can be expected to fall short in describing emerging global catastrophic risks such as threats from bio-technology. The presentation will also examine some recent research into techniques which offer some promise in assessing such emerging risks.