THIS WEEK'S RMN
MARKETS · Data Center Concentration Is Risk Growing: Swiss Re’s LaRocca
Data center campuses that once required $2 billion in coverage now need $20 billion or more, and the insurance industry is racing to keep pace with a concentration risk problem that is only getting larger. — Read →
MARKETS · KKR Builds $60B Insurance War Chest While Credit Markets Bifurcate
"Last time this happened, we felt like we missed it." — Read →
MODELS · Wall Street Is Learning to Price Wildfire, But The Data That Makes It Possible Is Disappearing
A Columbia panel on financing energy tech surfaced a deeper story about physical risk, capital markets, and the federal science layer underneath both. — Read →
MARKETS · Berkshire Notches Wildfire Win, But Earnings Show Long-Term Liability Remains Unresolved
Berkshire Hathaway's first quarter filing reveals $2.9 billion in cumulative wildfire loss accruals at PacifiCorp even after a significant Oregon appellate reversal — leaving a liability architecture that remains in question.— Read →
Thursday, June 11, 2 p.m. EDT
Forecasts say 2026 will be moderate. Recent history says that it doesn't matter when it comes to losses. Fewer storms that are more intense, more expensive — and the gap between what's modeled, priced, and actually arrives is the real story.
Ten days into the new season, three professionals who price and model hurricane risk for a living sit down for an hour and discuss how are existing risk markets are adapting to that uncertainty. And can new structures, like prediction markets and parametrics, fill a gap for capital allocators reading the same signal?
Join (from left to right) Patrick Brown (Interactive Brokers), Karen Clark ( Karen Clark & Co) and Vijay Manghnani, (King Ridge Capital), for a 60 minute, Risky Science Live Q&A.
This free live discussion will cap out at 100 participants, so register today.
Regulators Are Asking Cat Models to Do a Job They Were Never Built For: IBHS's Wright
IBHS CEO Roy Wright has a message for state regulators demanding that catastrophe models price individual home mitigation: you're asking the wrong tool to do the wrong job.
"Cat models were trying to understand aggregated risk," Wright said in a conversation recorded at Climate Tech Connect 2026 last month. "We've created a world where we've conflated cat risk aggregation modeling and underwriting modeling."
The distinction matters as California's wildfire insurance crisis has pushed regulators and lawmakers to demand that mitigation actions (brush clearing, ember-resistant vents, defensible space) show up directly in consumer pricing.
Wright argues the right vehicle for that signal is the underwriting model, not the catastrophe accumulation model. Several major modelers are already building software suites to support that workflow at the primary carrier level, he said, though he declined to name them.
But Wright's more pointed argument is about scale.
Individual home hardening is necessary but not sufficient. "If 22 out of 25 houses on a block have taken the right kind of wildfire preparedness actions, you've changed the risk," he said. "And that should be met with price. But it's not right now."
He frames effective mitigation around four requirements: consumer willingness, code-backed public policy, price incentives tied to risk reduction, and workforce capacity to execute the work. On codes specifically, Wright cited IBHS data showing that only 32% of U.S. jurisdictions have a modern code that is actually enforced — and that even code-compliant homes underperform FORTIFIED-designated structures by roughly 50% when storms make landfall.
On flood, Wright (who signed NFIP's first reinsurance transaction as FEMA's flood insurance chief) said private market growth is achievable but depends on policy changes including mandatory offer requirements, and that roughly three million NFIP policies will likely remain a residual market regardless.
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