Leveraging Empirical Insurance Data for Climate Risk Assessment

The insurance sector faces escalating costs from both ordinary and catastrophic weather events. According to the IPCC, insurance acts as a crucial “risk-spreading mechanism”, redistributing the financial impacts of natural hazards across policyholders and society. The insurance sector also provides empirical data and expert assessments of hazard-related damages, fostering advancements in scientific research. 
 
Generali France, a local subsidiary of Assicurazioni Generali, has operated in mainland France and overseas since 1832. Through its Climate Lab and Reinsurance Department, we are collecting and analyzing natural hazard claims not only for regulatory purposes but also as part of its internal research and development initiatives. Our claims database comprises approximately 400,000 records collected over the last decade (2014–2024), linked to an annual exposure dataset of 1.5 million policies. 
 
The catalog was constructed though meticulous steps of data collection, standardization and enhancement. A date, geolocation, economic variables such as reported damages or insured values is associated to each claim which is then categorized by lines of business, natural hazards, weather-related events and triggered coverages. Such modular structure enables an analysis at multiple levels, from individual claims to aggregated data by reinsurance event or geographical area. The financial impact of each peril can thus be studied precisely: loss ratios, destruction rates, event costs both observed and net of (re)insurance protection. 

The database was designed under the assumption of relatively stable climatic variability and was cross-referenced with external data sources which ensure accuracy and reliability. As an illustration, hurricane Irma 2017 in the Caribbean, hailstorms of 2022, French South-East floods in 2015 and extra-tropical storm Ciaran in 2023 are clearly visible. 
 
Such approach should foster collaboration between the insurance sector and geoscience to address climate risks. By leveraging Generali France’s claims data, researchers can validate regional climate models, quantify the financial impacts of natural disasters, and improve socioeconomic projections at local and national scales.