PERILS to Include Australian Motor in Industry Catastrophe Exposure Update

PERILS, the independent Zurich-based company that provides industry-wide catastrophe insurance data, announced it will extend its line of business reporting to include Australian motor for personal and commercial lines.

PERILS will include Australian motor as part of its industry exposure update to be released in April 2020. PERILS will make available market-wide motor sums insured exposed to earthquake, flood, tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones, hailstorms and bushfires in Australia via its database. These are the same perils currently covered for the property line of business.

PERILS said it will provide event loss data for any events above a market loss of A$500 million (US$309.1 million) caused by these respective perils, for property and motor market losses combined.

PERILS will continue to collect property sums insured, but in addition will include motor sums insured and motor event loss data from primary insurers in Australia per postcode (high-resolution CRESTA Zones).

Based on the collected data, PERILS produces market exposures (total sums insured) and market event losses. This information can be used for a range of applications, including for industry loss-based risk transfer products such as industry loss warranties and insurance-linked securities and for catastrophe risk model validation.

“In addition to Canada, Australia will be the next market for which PERILS provides motor exposure and loss reporting. We are particularly grateful for the support we have received from the primary insurance industry in Australia to add motor going forward as without this it would not be possible,” commented Luzi Hitz, CEO of PERILS.

“We believe it is yet another enhancement to our offering to fulfil our mission to increase data availability and transparency in the field of natural catastrophe insurance and to also enhance the availability of capacity into this important market,” added Hitz.

“PERILS has been covering the Australian market for nearly three years during which time we have been increasingly asked by the industry to provide motor exposure and loss data. This enhancement will be the first time that motor exposure and loss data is available in the Australian market,” said Darryl Pidcock, head of PERILS Asia-Pacific.

“Motor is a major line of business in the Australian market and is a significant contributor to losses, as we observed in more recent events such as Sydney hailstorms in December 2018 and the Australian hailstorms in January 2020,” added Pidcock.

Source: PERILS

Topics Catastrophe Profit Loss Australia