A new report from Verisk predicts a “new reality” in future natural catastrophes, with unprecedented global losses to exceed $152 billion annually. It’s being driven by “frequency perils” − frequent events, such as daily afternoon summer storms and hurricanes, that are driving high-impact losses.

Former Florida Deputy Insurance Commissioner Lisa Miller sits down with a Verisk modeler and a Florida property insurance company meteorologist and risk analyst, to discuss how catastrophe modeling works, how insurance companies use it to set homeowners rates, and its importance in understanding and mitigating extreme weather risks now and in the future.

Show Notes (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-60-our-growing-catastrophe-risk/)

The podcast discusses the increasing frequency and severity of storms and their impact on property insurance rates, particularly in Florida. Dr. Julia Borman is Assistant Vice President of the Regulatory and Rating Client Services Team at Verisk. It’s part of the data analytic firm’s Extreme Event Solutions division, which assists clients in working with regulators and rating agencies on a variety of projects, including data calls, utilizing catastrophe modeling in rating plans, and stress tests. Natalie Ferrari is a Meteorologist and Catastrophic Risk Analyst for American Integrity Insurance Company, based in Tampa, Florida. She provides data-driven insights into developing storms and their potential impacts by leveraging Verisk’s modeling. Together, with host Miller, they explored the evolving landscape of catastrophic risk modeling in rate filings and regulatory processes, the intensifying impact of extreme weather, and the need for resilience and preparedness in the face of natural disasters that modeling can guide.

Catastrophe Models: The Backbone of Modern Insurance

Verisk’s newest report, Modeling Insured Catastrophe Losses: A Global Perspective for 2025, projects expected future global losses to exceed $152 billion annually. That’s up from the $132 billion annual average loss over the past five years. Host Miller quoted Verisk Extreme Event Solutions President Rob Newbold’s remarks on the September 2025 report, that “the modeled losses reflect a fundamental shift in the risk landscape. Natural catastrophe losses are no longer statistical anomalies. They are the new normal.”

Borman said the report’s $152 billion figure is a particularly significant one, given that the actual global losses in 2024 were around $137 billion. “Over half of it was what we call frequency peril loss. You used to hear around the industry, folks were calling things like severe thunderstorms and wildfire ‘secondary perils.’ We don't call them that at Verisk anymore. They are frequency perils based on the fact that they happen often, typically within a year and those can really aggregate up into a large proportion of an insurance company's overall loss for the year,” Borman said.

The catastrophe models look at a variety of different perils, including hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, wildfires, and winter storms. “We were writing the report not just to understand the total amount of loss, but also the insurance gap that might exist around the world and where that was most prevalent,” she added. (For full Show Notes, visit https://lisamillerassociates.com/episode-60-our-growing-catastrophe-risk/)