Insurance companies rethought.

As a followup from my post on October 5th I found another article along the same lines.

This article is focusing on disseminating the details in a report by Munich Re, a reinsurance giant. The study performed brings some intersting topics to light, and then is debated for a few reasons.

The article talks about how climate change is affecting our weather patters in the continental United States and how this change in weather will affect the insurance models currently in place.

The study that Munich Re. conducted found that during the past 32 years the amount of natural disasters has multiplied by 5 times in the US, while only multiplying by 2X in europe.

These numbers are driven by factors like the amount of, and severity of tornadoes and thunderstorms, the intensity and length of drought periods, as well as some socioeconomic factors as well.

The article gives some visual displays (worth checking out) and numbers to put to the claims, but what is most important is what is brought up by researches at UC Boulder, who disagree with the Munich Re. study and findings. The researchers at CU-Boulder suggest that similar peer reviewed articles are finding the opposite of what Munich Re. is saying. They do not debate the increase in damage or frequency of natural disasters. They suggest that there is no hard evidence to prove human caused global warming is the creation of these factors though.

“The signal of human-caused climate change has not yet been detected in disaster loss data. Even so, humans affect the climate and a range of actions are worth considering in response. But the importance of climate change should not lead to a deviation from standards of scientific integrity,” Pielke (CU-Boulder Researcher) said in an email conversation. He criticized Munich Re for including advocacy of climate adaptation and mitigation in the report and not submitting it for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, saying that their actions have created the impression that they “have interests well beyond an accurate reporting of the science.”

Obviously, Munich Re. DOES have alternative motives, they're an Insurance COmpany. Munich Re. is not in the business of mainting scientific methods and quality. However, they have a duty to perform qualtiy studies both for their own company good as well as the good of th public.

THis whole debate is important to focus on because its that restructure on insurance companies that could be important in our future as the planet starts getting warmer.

Check out the article for further debate and some more 'hard' facts.







http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/18/natural-disaster-trends-report_n_1975190.html