In this thesis I study the nature of decision making under uncertainty in the case of natural catastrophes and reinsurance underwriting at Lloyd's of London. I begin by describing the broad context of natural catastrophes and society, which forms the basis for a market in catastrophe reinsurance. I then proceed to a review of literatures in risk, uncertainty, philosophy, and probability as a prelude to an analysis of decision making under catastrophic risk. According to the early 20th century philosopher-economist Frank Knight, risk specified those cases in which a frequency probability could be assigned, while situations of uncertainty do not allow a frequency probability since they are unique instances. In the thesis, I make the additional argument that risk and uncertainty are not solely categories of probability, but rather categories of probability and causality. The second main strand of the thesis refers to J.M. Keynes' work on probability which while related to frequency probability, is different in its emphasis on judgment and the assessment of information. I propose a causal framework to Keynes' weight of argument approach in terms of J.L. Mackie's causal field. With these two main ideas on probability and the addition of the causal field, the thesis presents the theoretical basis of its model of decision making. The last component of the model is developed through a review and critique of the economic literature on decision making under uncertainty. As the literature is founded upon frequency probability definitions of risk, the thesis argues through its theoretical investigations that this approach neglects the causal element of decision making, and that uncertainty requires a broader conceptualization than simply lack of probability. This final component, decision making routines, combines both individual and organizational elements. The empirical investigation of catastrophe risk underwriting at Lloyd's is organized into categories of decision making within a situated market context. I investigate the dominant categories and find that capital capacity and relationships drive reinsurance praxis. As an integration of its theoretical and empirical components, the thesis applies its risk decision making model. This model has implications for economic geography studies of the firm, in that it provides an epistemic and organizational basis for the formalization of tacit knowledge. The model also holds consequences for economic decision making theory, in that it integrates causal assessment in the purely probability based economic paradigm.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2005--Hannover.

The insurance industry relies on both commercial and in-house software packages to quantify financial risk to natural hazards. For earthquakes, the initial loss estimates from the industry’s catastrophe risk (CAT) models are based on the probabilistic damage a building would sustain due to a catalog of simulated earthquake events. Based on the occurrence rates of the simulated earthquake events, an exceedance probability (EP) curve is calculated, which provides the probability of exceeding a specific loss threshold. Initially these loss exceedence probabilities help a company decide what insurance policies are most cost efficient. In addition they can also provide insights into loss predictions in the event that an actual natural disaster takes place, thus the insurance company is prepared to pay out their insured parties the necessary amount. However, there is always an associated uncertainty with the loss calculations produced by these models. The goal of this research is to reduce this uncertainty by using Bayesian inference with real time earthquake data to calculate an updated loss. Bayes theory is an iterative process that modifies the loss distribution with every piece of incoming information. The posterior updates are calculated by multiplying a baseline prior distribution with a likelihood function and normalization factor. The first prior is the initial loss distribution from the simulated events database before any information about a real earthquake is available. The crucial step in the update procedure is defining a likelihood function that establishes a relative weight for each simulated earthquake, relating how alike or dislike the attributes of a simulated earthquake are to those of a real earthquake event. To define this likelihood function, the general proposed approach is to quantify real time earthquake attributes such as magnitude, location, building tagging and damage, and compare them to an equivalent value for each simulated earthquake from the CAT model database. In order to obtain the simulated model parameters, the catastrophe risk model is analyzed for different building construction types, such as steel and reinforced concrete. For every model case, the loss, peak ground acceleration per building and simulated event magnitude and locations are recorded. Next, in order to calculate the real earthquake attributes, data was collected for three case studies, the 7.1 magnitude 1997 Punitaqui, the 8.8 magnitude 2010 Chile earthquake and the 6.7 magnitude 1994 Northridge earthquake. For each of these real earthquake events, the magnitude, location, peak ground acceleration at every available accelerometer location, building tagging and qualitative damage descriptions were recorded. Once the data was collected for both the real and simulated events, they were quantified so they could be compared on equal scales. Using the quantified parameter values, a likelihood function was defined for each update step. In general, as the number of updates increased, the loss estimates tended to converge to a steady value for both the medium and large event. In addition, the loss for the 6.7 and 7.1 event converged to a smaller value than that of the 8.8 event. The proposed methodology was only applied to earthquakes, but is broad enough to be applied to any type of peril.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-149). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

氣候變遷加劇全球各地天然災害。基於保障人民基本生活，政府主動積極管理災害風險已不可避免，而國際上亦普遍以保險機制調適氣候變遷風險，且建立公私合作關係共同承擔巨災損失。本文整理分析文獻資料作為論述基礎，並比較研究國內外天然災害保險制度，歸納整理共同特性與功能，以及建立制度之基本原則與經營基礎，以演繹我國天然災害保險制度法制化重點包括：1.立法形式：單獨特別立法建立制度；2.政府角色：兼具保險人及再保險人角色，提供天災保險保障並具風險承擔功能；3.制度模式：在公私合作關係下，由民營保險人負責銷售管理、理賠且承擔中間規模損失，而政府提供財務支持或擔保；4.制度定位及性質：屬於非社會保險之公共計畫（政策保險），人民無投保之法律上義務；5.保障範圍：規範最低承保範圍，提供人民一致且可負擔之保險；6.減災責任及誘因：保險制度應整合減災，納入個人減災誘因且於利害關係人間（政府、被保險人、保險人）適當分攤減災責任；7.主管機關與專職管理組織：減災為天然災害保險不可分割之一部分，宜跨越行政組織分工，從功能性意義上互動共同治理；並將住宅地震保險基金轉型為天然災害保險基金作為專職管理組織；8.風險分散機制：立法設置多層次風險承擔機制，由被保險人自負低層小額損失，保險人、天災基金、再保險人、資本市場承擔中間層級責任，政府則承受極端重大損失。 / Climate change has intensified natural disasters worldwide. To protect people’s basic livelihoods, it is necessary that the government actively and aggressively manages the risks of disasters. Meanwhile, insurance system is an adaptation measure generally adopted to pool the risks of climate change, and public and private cooperation is established to share the losses of huge disasters. This study compared domestic and foreign insurance systems aiming at natural disasters based on the summary and analysis of literature to develop the keys legislation regarding a natural disaster insurance system: 1. Type of legislation: individually established legislative system; 2. Government role: both the insurer and re-insurer providing protection and risk assumption for natural disasters; 3. System model: with public and private cooperation, private insurers are responsible for the sales, management, claims and assumed losses on a moderate scale, while the government provides financial support or guarantees; 4. System positioning and nature: the public plan other than social insurance, people is no generalized duty to buy cover in the system; 5. Coverage: minimum protection, providing consistent and affordable insurance to all people; 6. Mitigation and incentives: the insurance system should integrate mitigation with personal incentives for disaster reduction and share mitigation responsibilities among stakeholders (government, insured, insurer) as appropriate; 7. Competent authority and dedicated management organization: mitigation is an inseparable part of natural disaster insurance, which is appropriate for the work divisions of cross-administrative organizations and interactive governance in functions; turn the Taiwan Residential Earthquake Insurance Fund into a natural disaster insurance fund for dedicated management; 8. Risk diversification mechanism: set a multi-level risk sharing mechanism through legislation, in which the insured shall be responsible for low-level losses in small amounts; the insurer, natural disaster insurance fund, re-insurer, and capital market share the middle-level liabilities; and the government shall bear the extremely large losses.

Nos sociétés actuelles sont fortement exposées aux risques de catastrophes qu’ils soient d’origine naturelle ou humaine. Le problème des risques majeurs évolue dans le temps, les facteurs favorisant cette évolution sont nombreux : ils peuvent être d’ordre environnemental, technologique, démographique ou socio-économique.La vulnérabilité des pays en voie de développement aux risques de catastrophes est beaucoup plus importante. Cette situation s’explique par plusieurs facteurs dont notamment la qualité de l’infrastructure susceptible d’être touchée, l’absence d’une cartographie de risques qui a pour conséquence directe la construction dans des zones fortement exposées aux catastrophes, l’absence de mesures de prévention, l’absence de politique de financement et de reconstruction des catastrophes. Ceci-dit une conscience est entrain de se développer dans ces régions. Le Maroc figure parmi les pays qui sont très vulnérables aux risques majeurs et c’est pour cela que le gouvernement marocain, avec le concours de la Banque Mondiale et de la coopération Suisse, a décidé de mettre en place une stratégie nationale de gestion intégrée des catastrophes qui comprend un volet indemnisation post-catastrophes inspiré du « régime Cat Nat » français. En effet les assureurs marocains se verront obliger de couvrir les risques catastrophiques par des garanties obligatoires adossées à certains contrats d’assurance.Ce travail propose ainsi d’analyser d’un point de vue opérationnel les différents aspects juridiques de la gestion des risques majeurs : la prévention et le financement des catastrophes. / Our societies are becoming increasingly exposed to the risks of natural or human disasters. Major risks change over time, the factors affecting these changes are diverse and can be environmental, technological, demographic or socio-economic. The vulnerability of developing countries to catastrophic risk is much higher than that of developed nations. This can be explained by several factors, including the quality of infrastructure likely to be affected, the lack of a risk mapping that has the direct consequence of construction in areas highly exposed to disasters, the absence of preventive measures, and the lack of funding and reconstruction policies. That being said, there is growing awareness around these areas.Morocco is among the countries that are highly vulnerable to major risks and that is why the Moroccan government, with the assistance of the World Bank and the Swiss Cooperation has decided to implement a national strategy for integrated management of disasters which includes a post-disaster compensation component based on the French "Cat Nat Plan". Therefore, Moroccan insurers will be required to cover catastrophic risks through mandatory coverage backed by certain insurance contracts.This work proposes to analyze from an operational point of view the various legal aspects of major risks management: prevention and disaster funding.

因台灣全島具有許多地震斷層，各處均有可能發生地震，又大型地震易伴隨之地震變動，常有斷層、山崩、地裂、地盤隆起、陷沒、崩崖、噴沙、噴泥、土壤液化、井水變化之情形發生。地震所造成之損失相當嚴重，若僅賴政府之事後救濟，將造成納稅人及國家沉重之財政負荷，相形之下，使人民事前投保地震保險，共同分散損失，乃較佳選擇。有鑑於位於高地震風險地區之國家，例如，位於「環太平洋地震帶」之日本、紐西蘭、美國加州，及位於「歐亞地震帶」之土耳其等，均陸續發展地震保險制度，故本論文欲藉各國地震保險制度，探討我國目前住宅地震保險制度之完善性。 本論文以此為主題，探討之內容包含地震風險是否具可保性、政府是否應介入地震保險市場、綜合天災保險之可行性、地震保險保費釐定之考量因素、是否應強制投保地震保險、強制承保之必要性、目前之投保方式是否構成違法之搭售行為、及理賠標準之爭議等問題，於論文最後並提出相關條文之修正建議。 / Earthquakes occur frequently in Taiwan, and they always lead to catastrophic losses. If the government invests more taxpayer dollars into ex post compensation, it will be unfair to other taxpayers. For insurance plays an important role in the modern societies. It can successfully distribute the risks ex ante and contribute to make societies more stable. So this paper introduces Earthquake Insurance to solve the problem, discusses the topic from different aspects, and does a comparative research on legislation between America, Japan, New Zealand, Turkey and Taiwan. The outline of this paper discusses the insurability, the ways of risk management, the need of government intervention, whether to introduce mandatory insurance, the coverage extent the insurer can provide, and how to determine the premium. At the last of this paper, the author also raises some suggestions of Insurance Law.

This study investigates the extent to which South African short-term insurance companies manage climate change risk, as evidenced in their annual and sustainability reporting. The study context takes into account the fact that the world’s climate has been changing at a more accelerated rate since the early 1970s, causing disasters that have negatively affected world economies in the last ten years. Insurers, due to their huge financial resource base, long history of spurring innovation around risk and encouraging loss-reducing behaviour as well as high levels of vulnerability, have been identified as one industry that could lead societies in finding solutions to climate change risk. A key element of such a corporate resolve involves taking a leadership position which makes business sense for insurers. As such, this research analyses how innovative solutions to change-related problems could result in reduced exposure to climate change in line with corporate triple bottom line objectives. Based on a purposive sampling of short-term insurance companies operating in the South African market during the 2007 financial year, the study uses the companies’ annual and sustainability reports in order to critically assess evidence of climate change-related performance. The assessment is undertaken against the best practice indicators of climate change risk management, as defined by Ceres – a global researcher on climate change management in the business context. The data analysis is largely qualitative, consisting of a narrative presentation of the results and a conceptual application of the results to the triple bottom line which forms the theoretical framework of this study. The study finds that the South African short-term insurers were generally not living up to the climate change management ideals, in comparison to their multinational counterparts. For the South African short-term insurers, corporate strategic product innovation and planning was insignificant. Also negligible was board involvement, as well as CEO involvement, though in at least one case of the 4 local short-term insurance, there was evidence of extensive CEO involvement in climate change risk management. On the whole, these findings represent a lapse in corporate governance inasmuch as climate change risk management is concerned. Local short-term insurers generally performed well in the area of public disclosure, with their scores ranging from insignificant to extensive. In contrast, multinational short-term insurers’ performance with regard to climate change risk intervention ranged from insignificant tointegrated, across the five governance areas of board oversight, management execution, public disclosure, emissions accounting and strategic planning. As such, the study broadly recommends that short-term insurers in South Africa should make climate change part of their overall risk management strategies in order for them to remain competitive in an environment of increased climate change-related risk. More specifically, the research project recommends that the local insurers should proactively lead climate change mitigation measures through, for instance, investing in clean energy projects and incentivising their clients’ participation in the carbon market to prepare themselves for possible regulatory restrictions after the Copenhagen climate change conference planned for December 2009. This study also challenges insurers to help communities and as well as other businesses in their value chain to reduce their negative impacts on the world’s climate and to be more resilient against disasters which may arise from the high levels of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. Further, it recommends that insurers should create internal board and executive level climate change-related structures, as these will facilitate the integration of the proposed initiatives into their overall sustainability strategies. Above all, the study recommends that insurers should enhance the reporting of their climate change-related risk, opportunities and initiatives to improve their integrity.