The WTW Research Network and Nearly Two Decades of Creative Private-Public Partnerships on the Science of Weather and Climate Risks

Abstract: Every year, hailstorms, hurricanes, wildfires, and other hazards — the list is long — wreak havoc on communities, industry, and infrastructure, resulting in fatalities, loss of property, and other socio-economic disruption. Because weather and climate hazards pose a constant threat to business operations worldwide, the management of those risks is a core specialty of WTW, a global advisory company headquartered in London (NASDAQ: WTW). For nearly 20 years, WTW has advanced the study of geophysical risks through a series of innovative partnerships between our firm, universities, government agencies, and the private sector. Owing to the company’s origins in the insurance and reinsurance industries, the WTW Research Network has sponsored an impressive roster of projects directed at those catastrophes known to produce the very highest financial losses. For example, our long-standing collaboration with the University of Exeter has led to groundbreaking advancements in the understanding of European windstorm clustering, wind footprint simulation, and in the impact of climate change on European storm risks. And because so-called ‘secondary perils’ — events that usually cause small- to mid-sized losses — have become more important in recent years, we support several project lines on hailstorms, tornadoes, and fluvial, pluvial, and coastal flooding. Finally, in line with our firm-wide goal to build ‘a smarter way to risk’, our Research Network is working to apply advances in seasonal climate prediction to business, evaluate modelling tools used by insurers and other financial institutions to gauge their exposure to geophysical perils, and build tools and scenarios to help our clients better understand how climate change affects their risk profile. We are grateful to have served as partner to the weather and climate science community since 2007 and are keen to apply the latest findings from the discipline to strengthen the resilience of our clients and society.

Biography: Daniel is the Weather and Climate Risks Research Lead at WTW, enhancing hazard and risk modelling through collaborations with academics and industry scientists. With extensive experience in climate science, he specialises in high-resolution regional climate simulations, focusing on refining weather prediction and mitigating impacts of severe weather, particularly in aviation. Before WTW, Daniel worked on integrating AI with climate science to support sustainable aviation practices. Daniel earned his MSc and PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of East Anglia, in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey.