In its ‘boiling the ocean?’ workshop at GIRO Conference 2022, the Climate Change Reserving Working Party explored how climate change would impact the work of reserving actuaries. The working party surveyed current attitudes and approaches and unpacked key questions for reserving actuaries. 

The changes to come will be far-reaching, complex, and increasing over time, reflecting the changing physical environment, society’s transition to a low-carbon global economy, and developments in climate litigation. 

The working party will share output from its 3 main workstreams, which are: 

climate litigation case studies: landmark legal cases expected to shape the future litigation and liability landscape heat map tool: how to identify and assess exposures and vulnerabilities within your reserving (and underwriting) portfolios: proof-of-concept applications to property and directors and officers classes communications: how actuaries might describe uncertainty in year-end reserving exercises and statements of actuarial opinion 

The profile and urgency of the challenge for reserving actuaries has increased since last year, with continuing wildfires, record-breaking heatwaves, fast-moving developments in climate litigation, and the high-profile withdrawal of reinsurance capacity in major peril-regions. Also, the new TAS 100 includes an explicit reference to climate change. 

This workshop is aimed at general insurance reserving practitioners and will not assume an in-depth knowledge of climate change. 

Speakers: James Orr, PRA - Bank of England; Alex Marcuson, Marcuson Consulting and Josie Durley, Nephila