A.M. BestTV: Five Years Later, the Surprising Lessons of Superstorm Sandy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OLDWICK - OCTOBER 27, 2017 02:44 PM (EDT)
This ^A.M.BestTV episode marks the five-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, which paralyzed the Northeastern United States and showed that protection gaps imperil even highly developed areas and that more regions and facilities are threatened by flooding than many underwriters assumed. Click on http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=sandy1017 to view the entire program.

“What was unique about the storm was the size of the populated area that it covered,” said John Andre, managing director, A.M. Best. “The New York and New Jersey areas had not received such an impact from a storm before.”

Carl Hedde, head of risk accumulation, Munich Re America, said, “The storm showed that sea walls, which were thought to be high enough, were not, and as a result, New York City downtown subway tunnels were flooded to the point of becoming inoperable.”

Andre also highlighted what the industry has learned since the storm.

“Like with any significant event, the industry learns and moves on, and applies their risk management and changes their practices to allow for better protection going forward for subsequent events.”

Other people that appear in this episode:

• David Flandro, global head of analytics, JLT Re;


• Monica Ningen, managing director - chief property underwriter, United States and Canada, Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd;


• Chris Hackett, director, personal lines policy, Property Casualty Insurers Association of America; and


• A. Morris Tooker, executive vice president and head of middle market, The Hartford.

Recent episodes of ^A.M.BestTV include:

• ARC’s Parametric Coverage Put to Test in Florida Storm: Alok Jah, chief executive officer of Assured Risk Cover, said the company’s StormPeace coverage paid nearly all of its claims from Hurricane Irma within days: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=jha1017 .


• Cyberrisks Threaten Insurers’ Role as Trusted Organizations: Attendees to the 2017 Biennial Conference of the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation, held in London, said protecting insurers’ systems and customer privacy requires adopting proper technology and building a culture that protects privacy: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=icmif21017 .


• The Next Phase of Big Data: Info That Analyzes Itself, Presents Choices: Data experts review developments in data processing, storage and risk modeling, including how high speed processing and cloud storage is expanding insurers’ use of real-time modeling: http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=pci21017 .

^A.M.BestTV covers exclusive A.M. Best information and reports, targeted topics and key developments in the (re)insurance industry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sign up for alerts of episodes at http://www.ambest.com/multimedia/ambtvsignup.html . View ^A.M.BestTV episodes at http://www.ambest.tv.

A.M. Best is the world’s oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source.