Cooperations with Insurance Companies
For many years, the IMK has been cultivating various scientific and strategic cooperations with national and international insurance partners, thus building a valuable bridge between basic research and application. The aim of these collaborations is to bring cutting-edge science and novel methods into business and economy that affect the general public. In collaboration with our insurance partners, we have developed risk models or components of these models (hazard assessments of various natural hazards worldwide) for windstorms, hail, heavy rain, and floods that are now operationally applied. In addition, KIT has an endowed professorship on risks associated with extreme weather events, which is supported by the AXA Research Fund. KIT/IMK is the only European partner outside the UK in the excellence network Willis Research Network (WRN), which is funded by the insurance broker Willis Towers Watson (WTW).
Transfer successes:
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AXA Chair for Regional Climate and Weather Hazards supported by the AXA Research Fund: Risk assessment of extreme weather events under current and future climatic conditions,
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Long-term cooperation with Willis Towers Watson in collaboration with NASA to assess hail hazard across different continents (Europe, Australia, South Africa, South America) as part of a risk model,
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Long-term cooperation with AON to assess current and future risk of windstorms, convective storms, and flood events in Europe,
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Development of novel risk models for hail and flood operationally applied by a local primary insurer in Germany,
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Hail hazard assessment used as input for a hail risk model for France, Germany, and BENELUX by RenaissanceRe (formerly Tokyo Millennium Re).
