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Building from the success of Swiss Re Foundation and GEM’s collaboration in the South America Risk Assessment (SARA) project from 2013-2015, Swiss Re Institute and Swiss Re Group Underwriting (Cat Perils) and GEM have joined forces on a project to evaluate and improve GEM’s risk models for use by the insurance and reinsurance industry.

The new partnership will focus on enhancing the interoperability of GEM’s models, leveraging the OASIS Loss Modeling Framework for risk quantification. The project will also aim to promote transparency in risk modeling - a component that both organizations believe is vital in generating mechanisms to transfer and mitigate risk at various scales.

Patrice Tscherrig, Peril Lead Earthquake at Swiss Re, says “The local ownership of GEM tools and risk models in the SARA project has been a big motivation for our continuing trust and partnership with GEM. The collaborative and participatory approach of GEM is of great value to Swiss Re’s efforts in earthquake risk awareness and mitigation.”

Swiss Re Foundation, a separate legal entity, funded the SARA project. It focused mainly on risk assessment capacity development in South America. Local experts and stakeholders with GEM scientists and engineers carried out activities such as compilation of earthquake catalogues, creation of risk metrics and country risk profiles, and estimation of social vulnerability using GEM tools and products.

The new agreement will focus more on the technical aspect and transparent approach in loss estimation using GEM models and tools. John Schneider, GEM Secretary General, says “Swiss Re has been a long-time supporter of GEM’s open and transparent approach to risk modeling. We are happy that this new project will continue to pursue that goal by assisting GEM to bring models to the broader insurance and reinsurance industry.”