Oasis Insight Conference Zurich, hosted in collaboration with Swiss Re
About this Event
This conference at Swiss Re's headquarters in Zurich brings together catastrophe modelling professionals, re/insurers, models vendors and researchers to share insight, challenge conventions and chart the future of risk quantification.
The one day event focuses on the evolving role of open standards, user empowerment, adjusting models, navigating uncertainty and forward looking discussions around opportunities and challenges for the future of catastrophe modelling.
The day closes with reception drinks from 16:30. A relaxed opportunity to continue the conversation with peers from across the industry.
A high level agenda is presented below. Topics and speakers may be subject to change.
Agenda
🕑: 10:00 AM
Welcome and Introduction
Host: Beat Aeberhardt - Swiss Re
Open Standards and Interoperability for Cat Model Access
Host: Derek Neale - Moodys
Info: Catastrophe models have historically lived in proprietary silos, making it difficult for insurers to compare, combine, or switch between platforms. This session explores how the landscape is changing.
Representatives from Moody’s RMS and Verisk will outline the deployment opportunities now available through their platforms, including APIs, cloud-native access patterns, and workflow integrations that reduce barriers to model adoption. The session then turns to open data standards, covering both exposure representation (notably OED, the Open Exposure Data standard) and results formats, examining how shared schemas allow insurers to move data between vendors and internal systems without lossy translation. The session will reserve time for an interactive Q&A!
Adjusting Models: what do we need to do, what role should model vendors play?
Host: Dickie Whitaker - Oasis LMF
Info: No model is a perfect representation of the world it describes. Climate change is shifting hazard frequency and severity faster than model rebuild cycles can track; inflation has driven loss costs well beyond what historical data would suggest; and localised exposure characteristics, construction quality, demand surge dynamics, secondary perils, may simply be absent from a vendor catalogue. This session asks a pointed question: how should users be empowered to adjust models themselves, and what role should vendors play?
Networking Lunch
Navigating Uncertainty: How the Industry Deals with What We Don’t Know
Host: Simos Koumoutsaris -SCOR
Info: Uncertainty is not a flaw in catastrophe models, it is an intrinsic feature of any attempt to quantify rare, complex, and partially observable phenomena. Yet the insurance industry frequently presents model outputs as point estimates, and decision-makers from underwriters to CFOs often treat them as such. This session brings together practitioners from across the industry to examine how uncertainty is currently handled, where the gaps are, and what better practice looks like.
Presentations will cover uncertainty disaggregation (parameter, model, and process uncertainty), emerging approaches to communicating ranges to non-technical stakeholders, and the downstream effect of uncertainty on capital modelling, pricing, and treaty negotiation. A panel discussion will explore how firms are building uncertainty awareness into their decision frameworks.
Opportunities and Challenges for the Future
Host: Iwan Stalder - Zurich
Info: The closing session convenes industry leaders for a forward-looking discussion on where catastrophe modelling — and the broader (re)insurance ecosystem — is headed. Drawing on the day’s earlier themes of interoperability, user empowerment, and uncertainty, this session identifies the inflection points that will define the next decade.
🕑: 04:30 PM
Drinks Reception and Networking
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
EUR 0.00
