Pool Re gives detail on new terror risk management services

Pool Re, the UK’s government-backed terrorism reinsurer, has fleshed out the details of its newly launched division that offers insurers, captives and large corporates a range of terrorism risk management and modelling services. The new division, called Pool Re Solutions, will expand the reinsurer’s existing capabilities in counterterrorism intelligence and risk modelling, and create a new risk management offering. It has hired a former risk manager to run the new risk management team, which will begin developing services in line with members’ needs in 2020, according to Steve Coates, Pool Re’s chief underwriting officer. The risk management team will provide Pool Re member insurers and policyholders with terrorism risk management information, tools and techniques. It will also link government agencies, academia, risk professionals and the insurance industry to ensure knowledge and best practice is widely recognised and shared. Pool Re Solutions will also further advance the work of the reinsurer’s risk modelling team to underpin better pricing and greater deployment of capacity into terrorism insurance and reinsurance. “Since we launched Pool Re Solutions in November, we have received a lot of interest. We have recruited a risk manager to front the new risk management team, who will build out our partnerships and carry out the work our members say they need, which will include tools and techniques that underpin the terrorism risk assessment process and that policyholders and risk managers can use to benchmark their risk,” Mr Coates told CRE. “Customers will see more from Pool Re Solutions next year. There will be more reports and analysis and progressively there will be more tools, and we will look to launch more risk mitigation services. We have already held three courses to train insurers’ risk engineering teams in counterterrorism,” he added. Pool Re is looking to expand on its existing partnerships to offer its members, policyholders and risk managers white-label services. “We hope to offer wide-ranging services shaped by discussion of what customers need. This could include a terrorism risk engineering capability. This is one of the things we are looking at for the future,” said Mr Coates. “For now, we want to make Pool Re Solutions work and if people want more, we can look to develop this in the future,” he said. UK corporates will be able to access services through their property insurers or directly via captives, where these are members of Pool Re. The reinsurer currently has some 40 captive members and has experienced growing interest in its counterterrorism expertise and scenario modelling capabilities from risk managers, according to Mr Coates. A growing number of large corporates, as well as large construction and infrastructure projects, have expressed interest in using Pool Re’s modelling tools and terrorism scenarios to quantify their exposures and inform their insurance buying. In the past year, Pool Re has undertaken risk management work for a number of policyholders, including a bespoke study for Heathrow Airport. Since 2015, Pool Re has been working to increase the UK economy’s resilience to acts of terrorism and raise the insurance industry’s understanding of terrorism risk as well as its ability to price, manage and package terrorism exposures. “I believe Pool Re Solutions will represent a turning point in our industry’s relationship with terrorism risk and allow these two aims to truly converge. Ultimately, the more policies that are bought, the stronger the resilience of the economy to acts of terrorism, and the more the insurance industry is able to grow and innovate,” said Julian Enoizi, chief executive of Pool Re. “As the terrorism threat continues to change and become more complex, there has emerged a corresponding need for Pool Re to support its members with an equally dynamic set of underwriting tools, technical services, training and insight, to support the traditional provision of reinsurance cover. I am confident that Solutions will allow us to meaningfully address the information and demand gaps currently presenting challenges such as underinsurance in the SME sector, and enable Pool Re to continue to bridge and harness the best from both its public and private partners,” he added.

Pool Re gives detail on new terror risk management services

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