Catastrophe insurance data firm PERILS to include New Zealand in coverage

PERILS, a Zurich-based company providing industry-wide catastrophe insurance data, has extended its market coverage to include New Zealand.

PERILS will make available market-wide property sums insured exposed to the perils of earthquake, flood and extratropical cyclones in New Zealand via its database. In addition, PERILS will provide event loss data for any events above a market loss of NZD 300 million caused by these respective perils.

The addition of New Zealand brings to 17 the number of territories currently covered by PERILS, which also includes: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

PERILS collects property sums insured and event loss data from primary insurers in New Zealand per postcode (high-resolution CRESTA Zones) and Property Line of Business. Based on the collected data, PERILS produces an independent and objective data set of 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, as well as catastrophe risk model validation.

Commenting on the announcement, Luzi Hitz, chief executive of PERILS, said: "The inclusion of New Zealand is the next stage in the evolution of PERILS as it is the second country we have added to our database within the Asia-Pacific region. We are particularly grateful for the support we have received from the primary insurance industry in New Zealand. Without this support, we could not fulfill our mission to increase data availability and transparency in the field of natural catastrophe insurance, and as a result facilitate the sound management of natural catastrophe risk. Going forward, our target is to continue to add more territories in the Asia-Pacific region."

Darryl Pidcock, head of PERILS Asia-Pacific, said: "We are particularly excited that PERILS can now provide industry exposure and loss data for New Zealand. This is an important Cat market from an international capital perspective, and we have experienced first-hand the positive support from the industry for the work that we are doing. We hope PERILS can contribute to the sustainability of international Cat capacity over time and improve the modelling and management of New Zealand catastrophe risk going forward, supporting the various resilience-related initiatives by the New Zealand insurance industry and Government.”

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