About | Perils

PERILS aims to improve the availability of insurance market data relating to natural catastrophes to help enhance the industry’s understanding of such risks as well as to facilitate risk transfer based on industry loss indices.

PERILS' industry data are based on information exclusively received from insurance companies writing business in the territories covered by PERILS. The data provided are quality controlled, anonymized, aggregated, and subsequently extrapolated to industry (or market) level. The resulting industry benchmark data are available to all interested parties via a subscription service.

PERILS offers industry exposure and event loss data and an associated industry loss index service for natural catastrophes in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and Turkey. The Canadian data are produced by the PERILS subsidiary CatIQ. PERILS offers industry exposure data for Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. PERILS intends to offer event loss data and loss reporting service for Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand in future subject to gaining sufficient primary industry support.

PERILS AG was incorporated in January 2009 in Zurich, Switzerland as a joint stock company. The company registration number is CH-020.3.033.447-4. The principal office of PERILS is located in Zurich, Canton of Zurich, Switzerland. The original concept for PERILS was tabled during a series of discussions at the Chief Risk Officer Forum (www.thecroforum.org).

Shareholders of PERILS AG include: Allianz SE, AXA, Assicurazioni Generali, Groupama, Guy Carpenter, Insurance Australia Group, Munich Re, Partner Re, Swiss Re, and Zurich Insurance Group. Each shareholder holds equal equity.

In June 2019, PERILS acquired the Canadian loss and exposure aggregation firm Catastrophe Indices & Quantification Inc. (CatIQ), having an office in Toronto, Canada.

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Our offices

PERILS is active around the world. We have offices in Zurich, Sydney and Toronto.

Figures & Facts

> 71 %

PERILS overall market coverage as measured in percentage of property premium exceeds 71%

PERILS covers 21 countries: AU, AT, BE, CA, CH, DE, DK, FR, ID, IE, IT, JP, LU, NL, NO, NZ, PH, SE, TH, TR, UK

PERILS covers 7 perils: earthquake, extratropical windstorm, fire, flood, hail/convective storm, tropical cyclone, volcanic eruption

Since 1 January 2010, PERILS has released 12 updates of its industry exposure databases

Per 31 Mar 2022, PERILS has captured 66 events in the PERILS loss database

> 360

Since 1 January 2010, more than 360 PERILS-based transactions have been placed

Per 31 Mar 2022, 48 PERILS-based transactions were at risk

>USD 20 bn

Since 1 January 2010, a total of more than USD 20bn of PERILS-based capacity has been placed

USD 3.4 bn

Per 31 Mar 2022, more than USD 3.4bn of PERILS-based capacity was at risk

Our Mandate

PERILS is an independent organization providing high-quality data relevant to the insurance industry with the aim of increasing the understanding of insured risk and to facilitate risk transfer.

We make every effort to achieve the highest standards in both our products and services, and are committed to product innovation to ensure that PERILS is continually adding value to the global insurance industry.

Target Clients

PERILS’ products support a wide range of portfolio and risk management functions including:

measuring a company’s exposure or event loss data against the PERILS industry benchmark
assessing the risk of industry loss-based transactions
designing adequate insurance, reinsurance, retrocession, or capital markets protections
designing custom-made coverage triggers to minimize the basis risk of ILS or ILW protections
forecasting of losses from European and Australian windstorm events and from Australian hail events

These products are designed to be relevant to insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, modelers, ILS/ILW investment funds, claims managers, regulators, rating agencies, academic institutions and other related organizations and bodies.

Board of Directors

Sibylle Steimen, Chairwoman

Marc Bagarry, Director

Ewoud Bom, Director

Christopher Boss, Director

Nick Hartry, Director

Christoph Oehy, Director

Alberto Valenti, Director

Eddy Vanbeneden, Director

Yordanka Velichkova, Director

Team

Christoph Oehy

CEO

Christoph Oehy has more than 20 years of international property and casualty underwriting experience. Starting his career at Swiss Re as flood risk sp...ecialist, he has held several senior roles, including managing Swiss Re’s natural catastrophe portfolio, leading the Treaty Property & Casualty underwriting for Canada and English Caribbean and leading Facultative Property for several European countries. He holds a Master’s degree and PhD in Civil Engineering as well as an Executive MBA.

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Georg Andrea

Data Management

Georg Andrea has more than 25 years of professional experience in the reinsurance industry. Georg’s areas of expertise are underwriting, enterprise ex...posure management and probabilistic Nat Cat model development. Prior to joining PERILS he worked for Partner Re heading the exposure control team and from 1999 to 2005 he was responsible for the development of Partner Re’s proprietary earthquake risk analysis tool. In this role he assisted in pricing and designing parametric EQ covers. Georg holds an M.sc in geophysics from ETH Zürich where he specialized in seismology.

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Dalida Bachmann

Client Relationship

Dalida has more than 15 years of experience in the reinsurance industry. She worked as a contract analyst at Partner Re and later as a treaty underwri...ter at Glacier Re. Prior to joining PERILS, Dalida was a treaty underwriter at Credit Suisse’s insurance linked strategies business and at Bernina Re. She holds a Master’s degree in business administration.

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Maurus Feyen

Product Development

Maurus Feyen joined our team in March 2024, marking the beginning of his career in the reinsurance industry. He holds a Master's degree in Geography, ...his thesis investigated the biodiversity of grasslands using remote sensing techniques. At PERILS, Maurus works on product development with a focus on geospatial data and data analytics.

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Caroline Floyd

Director, CatIQ

With a background in atmospheric science and meteorology, Caroline has worked in Canada and the United States as a forecaster and weather expert, trac...king everything from landfalling hurricanes to ice storms and even radioactive fallout. She’s been a lead forecaster for coverage of two Olympic Games and The World Cup finals, producing hourly forecasts for every continent (excluding Antarctica – so far). After nearly 20 years of being one of the ‘they’ in “They say it’s going to rain”, Caroline joined CatIQ as Assistant Director in early 2020 and has been promoted to Director on 1st July 2022.

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Takashi Goda

Japan Representative

Takashi Goda is a highly experienced insurance executive with an industry experience of some 30 years including at Swiss Re and in the broking industr...y. Throughout his career he has held various senior positions in Japan, Europe and Asia, and was previously Head of Japan for Swiss Re and a Member of the Asia Management Team until his retirement in 2014. He then joined PERILS in 2019 with a passion to establish its footprint in Japan, one of the most important natural catastrophe markets.

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Luzi Hitz

Product Manager

Luzi Hitz has more than 30 years of experience in the reinsurance industry. He has held various risk management and underwriting positions at Swiss Re..., Glacier Re and Asia Capital Re. Until October 2023 he served as the CEO of PERILS. Throughout his career, Luzi has been involved in natural catastrophe risk assessment and Cat risk management and has authored numerous papers and speeches about the subject. He holds a Master’s degree in geology and a PhD in geophysics.

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Beena Makhijani

Operations

Beena Makhijani started her career in the reinsurance industry more than 20 years ago as a Technical Accountant for P&C and L&H at Swiss Re. After wor...king as a Business Analyst in Partner Re’s Nat CAT Operations, she has been instrumental in setting up the systems and framework of Qatar Re where she has been employed as a Senior Technical Accountant and as a Property Cat Technician. She studied at the University of Applied Sciences (HWV) in Winterthur and holds a Bachelor in Banking and Finance.

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Darryl Pidcock

Head of PERILS Asia-Pacific

Darryl Pidcock has more than 25 years of experience in the financial sector. After working in the banking industry for eight years, he entered the rei...nsurance sector in 1999, joining Swiss Re Australia as a credit specialist and P&C client manager. In 2005, he moved to Hong Kong to head up the Hong Kong and Taiwan P&C and L&H business units. This was followed by his appointment as Head of Swiss Re’s Korea branch in 2010 and Head of Client Management for China in 2013. In 2015, Darryl moved to Singapore to head up the client management team for Swiss Re L&H in Southeast Asia.

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Tomihiro Segawa

Senior Advisor

Tomihiro Segawa has over 40 years of experience in the reinsurance industry and is a recognised and well connected practitioner worldwide. He has held... various client management, underwriting and senior leadership positions at Swiss Re, Tokio Millennium Re and RenaissanceRe, before retiring in March 2022. As Senior Advisor at PERILS, he provides valuable contribution in the further development of natural catastrophe risk assessment and management worldwide.

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Rolf Staub

General Counsel

Rolf Staub has more than 30 years of experience working as an attorney in the reinsurance industry. He has held various executive jobs working amongst... others for Allianz Risk Transfer and Zurich Insurance where he served as General Counsel for Group Insurance and Group Reinsurance. Rolf holds a Master’s degree in law and is a qualified Swiss attorney.
For several years, Rolf has been the Chairman of the Swiss Chapter of the Insurance Law Industry Association “AIDA”. He currently lectures in reinsurance law at the Zurich University LLM program and serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the F+F School of Art and Design, in Zurich.

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Laura Twidle

CEO, CatIQ

Laura has been a professional meteorologist for over 7 years, and she specializes in forecasting catastrophic events and providing decision-makers wit...h proper information and tools. Laura analyzes insurance loss and exposure data and has designed and managed the development of several projects at CatIQ. For several years, she has also had a role on the steering committee for the annual Canadian catastrophe conference. Laura was previously the Managing Director at CatIQ before becoming CEO on July 1, 2022. Laura holds a BSc. in meteorology and mathematics, and an MSc. in atmospheric and oceanic sciences, with a focus on extreme precipitation events.

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Catherine Weber

Operations

Catherine Weber has more than 25 years of professional experience in the reinsurance industry. Catherine has worked for Swiss Re as a property underwr...iter, client relationship manager and communication manager both in Zurich and in Paris. She holds a diploma of the Business School EAD (École d’Administration et de Direction des Affaires, Paris).

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Lukas Wissler

Product Management

Lukas Wissler has been involved in underwriting, pricing and modelling of traditional and non-traditional reinsurance products for more than 20 years.... He gained his first experience in natural perils reinsurance as an underwriter in PartnerRe's catastrophe unit. From 2009 he was instrumental in setting up Novae Re and Qatar Re, for which he developed the international property cat portfolios. Lukas studied geology and did his PhD on global climate change in earth’s history.

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Career

PERILS employs qualified individuals in the field of catastrophe insurance, actuarial sciences, marketing, IT and business administration. If you feel you can add value to our company, please contact us.

Apply now