PERILS AG (“PERILS”) was incorporated on January 26, 2009, in Zurich, Switzerland, as a joint stock company. The company registration number is CH-020.3.033.447-4 and the principal office of the company is located in Zurich, Canton of Zurich, Switzerland.
PERILS operates as an independent company and is owned by ten shareholders, each with an equal interest in PERILS. The shareholders of PERILS are: Allianz, Axa, Generali, Groupama, Guy Carpenter, Insurance Australia Group, Munich Re, Partner Re, Swiss Re and Zurich Insurance.
The independent nature of PERILS is supported and maintained by its governance structure, and reflected in its organizational documents, its employment contracts with PERILS personnel, and PERILS’ license agreements with its subscribers (including its shareholders). PERILS’ independence is further supported and maintained by its purpose-built IT system, to which there is highly restricted access, that is used to carry out data processing, quality control and industry exposure and event loss estimation, all in compliance with applicable antitrust, data privacy and competition laws.
PERILS also fully owns Catastrophe Indices & Quantification (CatIQ) of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. More information on the background of CatIQ can be found on www.catiq.com.
PERILS’ principal aim is to contribute to the transparency and understanding of catastrophe insurance risk by granting access to catastrophe insurance data to all interested parties. The roles of PERILS are to prepare and to make available aggregated anonymous insurance data, to develop business-relevant catastrophe insurance industry exposure and loss estimates and to provide related services.
PERILS has a staff of internationally experienced (re)insurance professionals whose educational backgrounds range from natural sciences and engineering to finance and business administration. Non-core activities such as office IT management, IT system development, accounting and human resources services are outsourced to third parties.
Transparency
PERILS strives for full transparency whilst always respecting the confidentiality agreements it has with its data providers, as well as competition, data privacy and antitrust regulations.
The PERILS IT system and data are stored on secure servers located at high security hosting locations in Switzerland. The provider is a leading cloud computing host with state-of-the art back-up and recovery procedures and relevant ISO- und CSA-STAR certifications.
PERILS provides industry exposure and loss data through its PERILS products as per Table 1.
PERILS EXTENDED is newly introduced in 2025. It extends the PERILS CORE product and replaces the product “CRESTA CLIX”. Therefore, PERILS EXTENDED is complementary to PERILS CORE, which means that for events where PERILS CORE is providing industry loss data, PERILS EXTENDED only includes industry loss data on country-level for territories not covered by PERILS CORE. Both products have distinct methodologies and definitions which are outlined below.
To avoid misunderstanding, the well-established “PERILS Industry Exposure and Loss Data” (new short name “PERILS CORE”), is unchanged and not affected by the introduction of PERILS EXTENDED.
For PERILS CORE, PERILS receives data from insurance companies writing business in the territories covered by PERILS CORE. PERILS enters into a contractual agreement (the “Data Provider Agreement”) with each of the data providing insurance companies. The Data Provider Agreement defines, amongst other things, the data to be provided to PERILS, the reporting schedule, the data processing within PERILS, and the highly confidential nature and treatment of the data to be provided.
Each data providing insurance company has an on-line account with
PERILS, which has been created specifically for the purpose of
delivering data to PERILS. After receiving a request from PERILS to
provide data, data providing insurance companies can log into their user
account and upload the requested data.
For the industry exposure
data covering Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, PERILS CORE
takes a different approach to its other territories in that PERILS
collaborates with leading industry stakeholders such as reinsurers,
intermediaries and modelling firms as data sources.
For PERILS EXTENDED, the sources of data are public and non-public information from insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, insurance associations, reporting agencies, insurance market analysts, consultancies, regulators, catastrophe risk modellers, academia, press, and other sources.
For PERILS CORE, ultimate gross event loss data and exposure data are provided by the data providing insurance companies to PERILS per covered territory and line of business. The geographical aggregation units used to report the data are, where feasible, CRESTA zones (for a definition of CRESTA zone, see www.cresta.org). The line of business aggregation units used to report the data are, where feasible, Residential Property, Commercial Property, Industrial Property, Agricultural Property (excl. crop, livestock and forestry), and Motor Hull. Loss data provided to PERILS includes losses resulting from the designated main peril of an event as well as losses from ensuing perils and other additional loss costs as they are recorded in the data providing insurance companies’ claims systems under the claims-affected policies for such an event.
The collected exposure data represent the data provider’s best-estimate of the sums insured, deductibles and loss limits of the insured risks. Where the sums insured are not recorded in the original policies, PERILS relies on the conversion by the data providing insurance companies of non-monetary exposure measures (e.g., sqm) into sums insured. Likewise, PERILS does not give any guidance for line of business classification and hence the data reported to PERILS are based entirely on the line of business classification of the data providing insurance companies.
For PERILS EXTENDED, the type of collected data are best estimates by public and non-public sources of industry losses per country for the Property and Motor Hull lines of business.
PERILS, in its professional judgment and sole discretion, identifies and designates a natural catastrophe event start date and end date as well as a unique PERILS event identification number (Event ID). In making these judgments, PERILS considers factors such as event definitions applied by the insurance and reinsurance markets, information received from the data providing insurance companies, as well as event-related scientific data and event identifications by governmental or academic institutions.
PERILS also determines, in its professional judgment and sole discretion, whether various insured losses occurring close in time to one another are to be considered the result of a single event or multiple (and separate) events. In determining whether one or more events have occurred, PERILS may consider the prevailing event definition(s) applied by the insurance and reinsurance markets, information received from the data providing insurance companies, and factors such as the inability on the part of insurance companies to distinguish the damage caused by the various events. As such, the PERILS event definition may differ from the event definition made or used by other sources.
PERILS, in its professional judgment and sole discretion, identifies and designates the main natural peril involved in a catastrophe event. In making these judgements, and as a general rule, PERILS applies the basic principle that the main peril is that which causes the majority of the losses. Sources used when making these judgements include the peril classifications applied by data providing insurance companies, the peril classification applied by reinsurance markets, as well as information from governmental or academic institutions, and national weather or seismological services. As such, the main peril designation made by PERILS for a certain catastrophe event may differ from the peril designation used by other sources.
The covered main perils are as per Table 2. Loss data in connection with a catastrophe event include losses resulting from the designated main peril as well as losses from ensuing perils and other loss costs as they are allocated and paid out by insurance companies in connection with the catastrophe event.
Data provided to PERILS by insurance companies includes exposure data (sums insured, deductibles, loss limits) by CRESTA zone and by country, premium data by country, and ultimate gross event loss data by CRESTA zone and by country. This company data is made anonymous upon receipt and is tested for quality and completeness using standardized data quality and completeness checks. If the quality and/or completeness of data provided is deemed unsatisfactory by PERILS, PERILS will reject the data submission and make a new request for data to the data providing insurance company. If company data quality and completeness are found to be adequate, the data provided is accepted by PERILS and is added to the data which has already been accepted within the identical aggregation units in the PERILS database. The original raw company data is deleted at this stage, in compliance with applicable antitrust and competition laws. None of the shareholders of PERILS have access to the data that is reported to PERILS by the data providing insurance companies, and within PERILS a restricted number of employees have access to such data prior to its deletion as described above.
Although PERILS performs a series of standardized data quality tests in the course of the company data processing, PERILS does not independently verify or audit the accuracy of the data provided as part of its methodology. As a result, there can be no assurance that the data provided to PERILS has been, is, or will be accurate or complete.
For industry exposure estimation, with the exception of the territories of Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, aggregated company exposure data within the identical aggregation units is extrapolated to industry-level (i.e., market-level) using aggregated company premium data and market premium information. The latter is broken down into individual aggregation units in proportion to population data and other proxy data such as land use or census data. Company premium data is broken down into individual aggregation units in proportion to the provided sums insured. The relationship between aggregated company premium and market premium then gives the market coverage per aggregation unit. The latter is used to extrapolate the aggregated exposure data per aggregation unit to industry-level (i.e., market-level).
If the average in-force date of the aggregate company exposure information precedes the in-force date of the PERILS CORE industry exposure, the calculated industry exposure is adjusted on a pro-rata to time basis to the in-force date of the PERILS CORE industry exposure, using best-estimates of market growth rates for each country under consideration.
If market coverage is insufficient to calculate a reliable industry exposure, professional judgment is applied by PERILS in its sole discretion to adjust the calculated industry exposure. In making these judgments, PERILS may consider various factors, such as information provided by national and local authorities or insurance industry sources, as well as census, land use and/or other statistical data, as it deems appropriate in the particular circumstances.
In relation to the territories of Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, provided industry-level exposure data (refer to Source of Data) is critically evaluated by PERILS and individual weights are assigned to each industry exposure data set using expert judgement guided by the principles of accuracy, transparency and objectivity. The results of the evaluation are combined in a weighted-average approach to produce the best-estimate of the industry exposures.
In order to preserve its flexibility to adjust to external circumstances and enhance the quality of the PERILS CORE industry exposure product, PERILS may, in its professional judgment and sole discretion, change its general exposure estimation methodology at any time and modify the application of its methodology.
For PERILS CORE industry loss estimation, aggregated company event loss data within the identical aggregation units is extrapolated to industry-level (i.e., market-level) using sums insured market share information. For the first two loss declarations, aggregated company event loss data per country is extrapolated to industry-level using sums insured market share information per country. For all subsequent loss declarations, aggregated company event loss data per aggregation unit is extrapolated to industry-level using sums insured market share information per aggregation unit.
If market coverage is insufficient to calculate a reliable industry event loss estimation, professional judgment is applied by PERILS, in its sole discretion, to adjust the calculated industry event loss data. In making these judgments, PERILS may consider various factors, such as meteorological and/or other scientific data, as well as information provided by national and local authorities or insurance industry sources, as it deems appropriate in the particular circumstances.
In order to preserve its flexibility to adjust to external circumstances and enhance the quality of the PERILS CORE industry loss product, PERILS may, in its sole discretion, change its general event loss estimation methodology at any time and modify the application of its methodology.
For PERILS EXTENDED industry loss estimation, PERILS applies a weighted-average approach of industry loss estimates of available sources for a given event. In case an information source is lacking coverage of certain territories or lines of business, PERILS may still consider the source and perform adjustments for the missing territories or lines of business before including the source in the PERILS EXTENDED industry loss assessment. For the determination of the weights and the possible adjustment of the individual data sources, PERILS applies its professional judgment at its sole discretion, following the guiding principles of accuracy, objectivity and traceability. The weighting of the information sources follows the principle of reliability and trustworthiness and can range from 0 to 100%. Allocated weights for a given event are reviewed each quarter and may be adjusted over time. In addition, as time passes after an event, new sources may become available and included in the assessment while previously used sources may become outdated and hence discarded (i.e. 0% weight).
In order to preserve its flexibility to adjust to external circumstances and enhance the quality of the PERILS EXTENDED industry loss product, PERILS may, in its sole discretion, change its general event loss estimation methodology at any time and modify the application of its methodology.
PERILS CORE provides industry exposure and loss data as per Table 3.
PERILS EXTENDED provides industry loss data as per Table 4.
PERILS determines, in its professional judgment and sole discretion, if a particular event has resulted in total insured losses above the industry loss reporting thresholds for PERILS CORE and PERILS EXTENDED, respectively. If an event is covered by both, PERILS CORE and PERILS EXTENDED, the total insured loss from both PERILS CORE and PERILS EXTENDED is used to determine whether the PERILS EXTENDED Event Loss Reporting Threshold is exceeded.
For events below the respective industry loss reporting thresholds, PERILS will generally not report any industry losses.
PERILS applies the principle of materiality and cannot guarantee that the industry loss for each and every country affected by a given event is made available and included in the industry loss calculation.
Examples (for illustration purposes only):
In the examples below the main peril is Extratropical Windstorm and the covered lines of business follow the definitions in Tables 3 and 4 above, i.e. “Property” for Germany (DEU) and Austria (AUT) for PERILS CORE, and “Property, Motor Hull” for Poland (POL) and Czechia (CZE) for PERILS EXTENDED.
PERILS industry loss data are generally exclusive of losses covered by governmental natural catastrophe insurance pools with the exception of (1) the Norwegian Natural Perils Pool, (2) the Swiss Elementary Pool, (3) the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool, (4) the Japan Earthquake Reinsurance Pool, and (5) Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake (formerly New Zealand Earthquake Commission (EQC)).
PERILS assigns a status to each industry event loss as per Table 5.
PERILS industry loss data are made available in local currencies, Euros and US Dollars. Exchange rates used are daily mid-market rates as at the event end date.
PERILS industry exposure data are made available in local currencies, Euros and US Dollars. Exchange rates used are daily mid-market rates as at the exposure in-force date.
PERILS delivers both its PERILS CORE and PERILS EXTENDED products via the PERILS Platform and on a transaction-specific basis. Access to the PERILS Platform is via annual subscription in accordance with the PERILS Database License. The use of PERILS loss data for industry-loss-based transactions is according to the PERILS General Trading License and transaction-specific term sheets.
Updated in January 2025