Speaking at the RMIA’s 2011 annual conference in Melbourne, the key speaker also said that current catastrophe modelling tools are on the button when it comes to the prediction of catastrophe losses so there is no excuse for insurers to be caught unawares and not price risk at the correct level.

Quoting comments from the London School of Economics (LSE) following research undertaken for Munich Re, the nat cat expert said that climate change is not the main concern when considering the increased losses from natural catastrophes. As the LSE said: “Accumulation of wealth in disaster prone areas is, and always remains, by far the most important aspect of future economic disaster damage.”

Whilst worldwide natural catastrophe losses are ‘going up exponentially’ it is rather caused by people and business increasingly inhabiting disaster prone areas and building design than any long-term trend of increased frequency and severity of catastrophes as a result of climate change, said Mr McAnaney.

There is a problem with land use planning and a need for more risk-informed decisions by government and the private sector on future build, he added. “We need to think about whether we want to control that more strongly.”

As an example, Mr McAnaney explained that during the Australian bushfires that ravished the Victorian towns of Kinglake and Marysville in 2009, 25% of property losses resulted from buildings within one metre of burnable bush. For properties within 10 metres this figure rises to 60%.

From his company’s analysis if there had been a 100-metre separation between all property and bush land in Australia, the 11,500 homes lost to bush fire in the country since 1900 would be reduced by 80%.

He is also concerned that areas such as the Gold Coast of Australia, along with cities such as Miami in the US, have seen a huge increase in exposure due to increased habitation in catastrophe-exposed areas.

The last flood to hit the Gold Coast in 1954 would today cause insured losses of $3.5bn, according to Risk Frontiers analysis.

“We do have a land use planning problem and if we want to address it and reduce our disaster losses then let’s identify that problem,” argued Mr McAnaney.

He also suggested that industry must be more sensitive to extreme weather events and take into account where their premises, operations and suppliers are based.

They must ensure that back up suppliers are from a wide geographical spread, he urged. This supply chain risk was highlighted by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan earlier in the year.

“Whilst many companies had a spread of suppliers and backup suppliers in Japan, it emerged following the earthquake and tsunami that in certain cases all of these were in the same area and were collectively unable to deliver goods,” explained the expert.

Whilst Mr McAnaney was clear that there are signs of climate change, as witnessed by the increase in global air temperatures and rising sea levels, he said its impact on natural catastrophes is less clear.

In particular he pointed out that any influence from climate change on Atlantic Tropical Cyclone activity is yet to be detected.

As such he cautions against attributing any short-term increase in extreme weather events and losses to climate change.

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