InsuranceERM Annual Awards 2022 - Americas

Risk team of the Year: PCS, a Verisk business

PCS has won the risk team award for its wide span of activities in 2021, which was one of the busiest catastrophe years in US history. The company's activities included reporting on new worldwide marine, energy and onshore risk loss events; launching a global large aviation index going back 40 years; overseeing its most active twelve months in Canada and Mexico; as well as providing input on cyber some of the less well covered risks around the globe.

For example, it provided the market additional insight into the South Africa riots in 2021 which caused the largest insured loss from Strikes, Riot and Civil Commotion (SRCC), even though it doesn't formally cover the region.

"This follows our informal contributions on industry loss analysis and reporting throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, with the understanding that PCS is happy to fill gaps in industry understanding where other sources of independent loss insights and thinking do not exist," says Tom Johansmeyer, head PCS.

Tom JohansmeyerPCS triggers account for more than 80% of the industry loss warranty (ILW) market.

And the provider has featured in innovative ILW structures, including composite specialty lines transactions involving bouquets of indices, such as M&E and terror.

In 2021, PCS produced original research on ILS appetite for political violence. In addition to addressing many rumours and misconceptions about the ILS market's willingness to consume political violence risk, it helped prime the market for a robust year of trading on the PCS Global Terror Index.

Based on the initiative's success PCS has already begun a similar effort on the ILS market's attitudes toward cyber.

Overall, PCS contributed to one of the most robust issuance years in cat bond market history, including the first uses of PCS Japan and US county-level estimates in catastrophe bond transactions.