Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has expanded its partnership with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in a collaboration with NASA’s Disasters Program and the NASA Langley Research Centre.
The collaboration aims to improve the understanding of hailstorm risks across Europe, focusing on their spatial and temporal distribution.
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Building on more than a decade of research, the new phase of the partnership will address the challenges posed by hailstorms, particularly in light of climate change.
Hailstorms remain one of the most costly severe weather risks in Europe, with increasing insured losses in recent years.
The partnership builds upon the original Willis European hail model introduced in 2014, which was the “first stochastic hail model” to cover all of Europe.
This model has been adopted by insurers and reinsurers for hail risk estimation and pricing.
In this latest phase, the model will be updated with improved data from NASA’s satellites, which track severe storms and hailstorms.
The collaboration will also introduce a new model set-up for hail hazard assessment.
Researchers involved in the project will investigate how climate factors affect hailstorm characteristics such as hailstone size, frequency and damage potential.
WTW weather & climate risks research lead Daniel Bannister said: “Our continued collaboration with KIT and NASA ensures we remain at the forefront of scientific research, enabling us to provide reinsurers with the insights they need to respond to this complex peril.”
WTW reported net income of $1.25bn (£966.86bn) for the fourth quarter of 2024, an increase from $623m in the same quarter of the previous year.
However, for the full year of 2024, the company registered a net loss of $88m, compared with a net income of $1.1bn in 2023.
This loss includes more than $1bn in impairment charges related to the sale of its unit TRANZACT.
