With the ever-present need for sovereign nations to employ the best possible risk management strategies in the face of the increased occurrence of natural hazards, the Global Risk Modelling Alliance (GRMA) panel discussions held at the V20 Pavilion during the recent COP27 event in Egypt, attracted significant interest.
Participating as a panellist was CEO of The Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC), Mr. Aholotu Palu. Leading one of the region’s premier risk management entities, his presentation highlighted the challenges nations of the Pacific Islands encounter while endeavouring to manage risk associated with natural hazards. These including identification, analysis, planning, mitigation and monitoring of risk.
Delving further, he explained that there exist three major barriers to improving risk management outcomes for the Pacific Islands. First, is the endemic problem of the paucity of data required to aid the decision-making process. Second, is that recognised risks are often overlooked and omitted from the decision-making process. Finally, the gaining and sharing of detailed knowledge and understanding is hampered by a lack of fully inclusive communications between all stakeholders.
Mr. Palu noted that with these factors already acknowledged by the industry, it was apparent that a greater investment of time and effort in critical dialogue and engagement was necessary among leaders and influential stakeholders to turn the tide and in improving decision-making mechanisms.
He also spoke on the hurdles that Pacific nations encounter in enhancing their financial resilience in the face of natural hazards, and how this has directly impacted the level of uptake across the region of disaster risk insurance, as offered by PCRIC.
“Fragmentation of data sources in terms of its quality and reliability is a real issue,” he said. “This makes modelling less precise and affects the calculation of premiums payable.” He continued by saying that, “along the same lines, the lack of specific detail in hazard/risk data affects the actuary and underwriting processes, impacts the magnitude of model variability and again, the pricing of premiums.”
With the support of the GRMA, PCRIC has ambitions to build the company into a technical focal point for regional disaster risk data, analytics, and modelling capacity, with tools and knowledge-sharing products available across the Pacific to aid resilience planning and investment.
GRMA is a unique technical assistance programme opening up private and public risk expertise, helping to build local expertise and empower communities to become more climate and disaster-resilient.
Participating as a panellist was CEO of The Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC), Mr. Aholotu Palu. Leading one of the region’s premier risk management entities, his presentation highlighted the challenges nations of the Pacific Islands encounter while endeavouring to manage risk associated with natural hazards. These including identification, analysis, planning, mitigation and monitoring of risk.
Delving further, he explained that there exist three major barriers to improving risk management outcomes for the Pacific Islands. First, is the endemic problem of the paucity of data required to aid the decision-making process. Second, is that recognised risks are often overlooked and omitted from the decision-making process. Finally, the gaining and sharing of detailed knowledge and understanding is hampered by a lack of fully inclusive communications between all stakeholders.
Mr. Palu noted that with these factors already acknowledged by the industry, it was apparent that a greater investment of time and effort in critical dialogue and engagement was necessary among leaders and influential stakeholders to turn the tide and in improving decision-making mechanisms.
He also spoke on the hurdles that Pacific nations encounter in enhancing their financial resilience in the face of natural hazards, and how this has directly impacted the level of uptake across the region of disaster risk insurance, as offered by PCRIC.
“Fragmentation of data sources in terms of its quality and reliability is a real issue,” he said. “This makes modelling less precise and affects the calculation of premiums payable.” He continued by saying that, “along the same lines, the lack of specific detail in hazard/risk data affects the actuary and underwriting processes, impacts the magnitude of model variability and again, the pricing of premiums.”
With the support of the GRMA, PCRIC has ambitions to build the company into a technical focal point for regional disaster risk data, analytics, and modelling capacity, with tools and knowledge-sharing products available across the Pacific to aid resilience planning and investment.
GRMA is a unique technical assistance programme opening up private and public risk expertise, helping to build local expertise and empower communities to become more climate and disaster-resilient.