Insurers and reinsurers are demanding more information from catastrophe modellers as they look to address regulators’ concerns about risk, according to Paul Burgess, Senior Director at the Singapore office of RMS.

Clients increasingly want to understand the information behind modelling so they can “tweak” it to the characteristics of their portfolios, he told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has ordered insurer boards and CEOs to improve their catastrophe risk governance and management, and Mr Burgess says clients are responding by seeking to understand what model assessments are based on.

“We are increasingly bringing out documentation and engaging face-to-face with clients to help them understand the data sets we have used, their strengths and limitations and how they should interpret the outcomes,” he said.

Insurers also want to understand models so they can take control of their own view of risk.

RMS is redeveloping its New Zealand earthquake model and expanding its modelling of typhoon risk in the western Pacific.

In the shorter term it is developing regional flood maps for South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.