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InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

Hurricanes and climate change: are we ready for a Cat 6? (375)

InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

InsTech

Entrepreneurship, Investing, Business

4.850 Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What would happen if the next hurricane wasn’t just stronger but completely off the scale? Are we prepared for a Category 6 event, and would it even show up in our models? In this panel discussion from InsTech’s July evening event The future of catastrophe risk: where science meets reality, supported by Inigo, Ruth Petrie leads a conversation on how insurers are responding to more extreme, uncertain and fast-changing catastrophe risks. Featuring: Emma Watkins, Catastrophe Risk Leader Chris Weller, Head of Exposure Management, Inigo Tom Philp, CEO, Maximum Information Together, they challenge the assumptions behind traditional catastrophe modelling, explore the limits of the Saffir-Simpson scale and ask whether imagination, not just data, will define the future of risk management. In this conversation, the panel explores: Whether the industry should move beyond Cat 5 and how we define “extreme” risk Why flood, surge and rainfall are often more damaging than wind alone How climate change is altering where and how storms form — and what we can predict What insurers can (and can’t) do in the face of rapid intensification Why demand surge, rebuild costs and politics are now central to loss estimation What kind of event would truly “shake” the insurance market — and why This is essential listening for exposure managers, underwriters, brokers and risk leaders looking to challenge conventional thinking and prepare for what’s next. If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning. Continuing Professional Development This InsTech Podcast Episode is accredited by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). By listening, you can claim up to 0.5 hours towards your CPD scheme. By the end of this podcast, you should be able to meet the following Learning Objectives: Identify where insurers remain unprepared for rapid intensification and other emerging storm behaviours. Produce a more complete view of catastrophe exposure by integrating hazard, vulnerability and socio-economic factors. Summarise the panel’s recommendations for improving risk communication, preparedness and resilience across the industry. If your organisation is a member of InsTech and you would like to receive a quarterly summary of the CPD hours you have earned, visit the Episode 375 page of the InsTech website or email [email protected] to let us know you have listened to this podcast. To help us measure the impact of the learning, we would be grateful if you would take a minute to complete a quick feedback survey.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Well, if you came up with a scale that could predict insurance losses, then you'd be winning the insurance game, wouldn't you?

0:05.2

Because at the moment, we can't even say what the losses are, you know, a few weeks after a storm's hit, let alone being able to predict itsteck podcast, Zoya here. And this week, we bring you a panel discussion we hosted at our July evening event, the future of catastrophe risk where

0:39.4

science meets reality. So we ramp up towards our exponential risk conference, which we are hosting

0:45.4

in March of next year. We return to Ruth Petrie, who chairs the session, joined by Tom Filk,

0:51.9

Emma Watkins and Chris Weller. As they tackle the question, are we ready for a so-called cat-six hurricane?

0:59.7

You'll hear why the Sapphire Simpson scale can't predict insurance losses,

1:03.6

what other metrics matter, from surge to rainfall to windfield size,

1:08.6

and how to think about extreme outliers with no historical president.

1:12.9

We also dive into preparedness, demand surges and the uncomfortable question of what it would

1:18.5

take to really shake the market. Just a quick note, Cat 6 here is shorthand for an extreme

1:24.9

off-the-scale event, but there's no official category six.

1:29.4

Relax, stick your feet up or simply make yourself a cup of tea.

1:33.6

Now let's dive into the conversation.

1:40.6

The discussion this evening is going to be around sort of hurricanes and climate change.

1:45.4

And specifically, when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about it, if it were to be the worst hurricane on record, a record-baking hurricane, making landfall in a really highly exposed area, what would this?

1:56.3

Are we prepared for this?

1:57.5

And sort of what would it mean?

1:58.7

So that's sort of the background to this.

2:01.3

But before we dive in, we were talking about the title of the session and it says here,

2:06.7

are we ready for a cat six? So just to be very clear, there's nothing, there is no category six

2:12.7

hurricane at present. So I'm sure you're all aware that, you know, this terminology category 1 through 5

2:19.1

comes from Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, and it runs from 1 through 5 and is based on wind speed,

...

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