Catastrophe modelling needs to improve in the world’s second biggest economy
Over the past 20 years the annual economic loss from Chinese natural hazards has reached nearly 200 billion RMB. Most recently major events have included snow storm and the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the drought in north, northeast and southwest China in 2009, and the 2010 Yushu earthquake.
“The pace of catastrophe model development in China has been very encouraging but all Chinese models still require better calibration to reflect local construction practices and loss experience. In addition, due to limited loss data and a fast changing risk landscape, a consensus on the risk outlook is yet to be achieved,” said Helen Ye, head of catastrophe reinsurance, at Aon Benfield Asia.
Aon Befield has sponsored the third edition of the Atlas of Natural Disaster Risk in China, a Chinese government research project that for the first time looks at how hazard, vulnerability and exposure integrate to help implement more effective prevention measures.
The map below is taken from the report and shows the annual expected losses from earthquakes per capita in China.
