Catastrophic Risks, Cyber Risk and Insurance Markets

Objective

This course studies how insurance markets cover catastrophic risks, be they natural disasters (e.g., flood, earthquake, hurricane) or industrial risks (e.g., environmental catastrophes, nuclear accidents). The focus is on one side on insurance mechanisms (limits to mutualisation under correlated risks, reinsurance mechanisms, transfers to financial markets through Insurance Linked Securities), and on the other side on the role of public policies for the solvency of insurance schemes and for incentives to prevention, from theoretical and applied standpoints.

Planning

Part I: Three examples of insurance schemes for natural disasters:
Natural disaster insurance in France
National Flood Insurance Program in the US
Caribbean catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility

Part II: Risk pooling, correlated risks, reinsurance and Alternative Risk Transfer:
The limits to risk pooling under correlated risks
Mechanisms of reinsurance for catastrophic risks
Transferring catastrophic risks to financial markets

Part III: Insurance coverage and risk prevention
Interaction between insurance, self-protection and self-insurance
Equity and efficiency in insurance coverage schemes for natural disaster risks
Insurance and liability for industrial risks

References

*Lecture notes (including copies of slides and bibliographical references)

*References for  cyber risk:

[ODHL21] C. Hillairet et O. Lopez. « Cyber-assurance : enjeux, modélisations et leviers de mutualisation », Opinions & Débats n°24, Institut Louis Bachelier, 2021. 

[BBH20] Y. Bessy-Roland, A. Boumezoued and C. Hillairet. « Multivariate Hawkes process for cyber insurance », Annals of Actuarial Science, 2020.

[FLT21] S. Farkas, O. Lopez and M. Thomas.  « Cyber claim analysis through Generalized Pareto Regression Trees with applications to insurance pricing and reserving », Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 2021.

[HL21] C. Hillairet and O. Lopez. « Propagation of cyber incidents in an insurance portfolio : counting processes combined with compartmental epidemiological models », Scandinavian Actuarial Journal, 2021.

[RM19] Etat de la menace numérique en 2019, https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/Communiques/L-etat-de-la-menace-liee-au-numerique-en-2019