Hurricanes, Earthquake Demonstrates Aggregate Risk

Hurricanes, Earthquake Demonstrates Aggregate Risk

 In Event News

Today’s hurricanes, earthquake demonstrate that while catastrophic events occur independently of each other, they can and occasionally will, strike concurrently. The aggregation of events in the Atlantic basin this hurricane season – plus the Pacific typhoons and 2 strong earthquakes in Mexico this month – is providing insureds, insurers and reinsurers with exactly that scenario.

This afternoon, while Hurricane Maria is approaching Puerto Rico as a major hurricane and Hurricane Jose continues to move north-east off the US east coast, a powerful M 7.1 earthquake has struck south of Mexico City, in a grim reminder of the M 8.1 event that occurred on this date in 1985 and devastated Mexico City.

Hurricanes, earthquake demonstrate accumulation risk

This earthquake is the second powerful tremblor to hit Mexico this month, following the M 8.1 quake on September 8. Much of Mexico City is built on former lake bed, and the soil is known to amplify the effects of earthquakes even hundreds of miles away.

Hurricane Maria – Assess Impacted Locations

In EigenPrism, subscribers can use the real-time Wind Probabilities for Hurricane Force Winds (>64kt) event set to assess the locations most likely to be impacted by hurricane force winds during Hurricane Maria.

As an example, follow the steps below to visualize the relative risk of assets located in Puerto Rico:

  • Click this Quick Link*
  • Login to EigenPrism as prompted
  • The Wind Probabilities event set will load automatically over your most recent exposure set (or select new exposure set if desired)
  • Zoom in to Puerto Rico (using the + sign in the lower left corner) until the wind bands are visible
  • The Top 10 Assets most impacted will appear in the summary on the right hand side
  • The number in the Intensity column represents the probability that hurricane strength winds will impact that location

Asset #7 shown below has a 30% chance of experiencing hurricane force winds:

Hurricane Maria relative ranking

The higher risk of Asset #7 (red pin) is shown relative to Asset #6 (pink pin):

Hurricane Maria wind probabilities for Puerto Rico

Actionable Analytics

  • EigenAlerts provide automated notifications with key metrics for all events
  • Customized and mobile enabled
  • Updated as forecasts and advisories change
Depending on your user profile, you may not have access to all the events mentioned above; if you have questions or need help setting up your alerts, please contact EigenPrism Support or call us at +1-888-678-RISK.