Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA) has announced the release of its latest and most comprehensive version of HurLoss® Hurricane Catastrophe Model software, including a greatly expanded full North Atlantic basin event set, and the most advanced climate change view in the market.
The latest version of HurLoss® includes a significant expansion of regions and countries covered, providing a unified event set covering the entire North Atlantic basin, including the U.S., Caribbean, Bermuda, and eastern portions of Canada, Mexico, and Central America.
Climate conditioning (or climate change) is a major new capability for HurLoss®. In addition to the standard long-term historical and near-term warm sea surface temperature climatology results, ARA is introducing future climate change based on several critical environmental inputs from leading General Circulation Models, which are used for weather forecasting and research.
This methodology was accepted by the Florida Commission on Loss Projection Methodology in June of 2023, the first model incorporating climate conditioning to receive approval.
Hurricane formation is especially responsive to the effects of a rapidly changing environment, particularly warming sea surface temperatures. However, ARA’s future climate modeling is not limited to sea surface temperature, but also considers the concomitant effects of wind shear and tropopause temperature, equally important to the formation of hurricanes.
Faced with ever rapidly increasing pace of climate change, insurers and other modeling stakeholders will benefit from this new dynamic view, in addition to the traditional modeling industry views of hurricane risk.
Additionally, HurLoss® will include the latest national land cover data (NLCD 2019), high value home vulnerability, and the latest building codes and additional wind zones for Florida.
This version is now available through Nasdaq Risk Modeling for Catastrophes platform, on the OASIS Loss Modeling Framework. The version will also soon be available on Moody’s Intelligent Risk Platform as an independent third-party model.
HurLoss®, the state-of-the-art model for insurers, reinsurers, brokers, and ILS managers, has served as the basis for structural design in hurricane-prone states since 1998 and used for federal emergency management and mitigation planning nationwide in the U.S. since 2003. Available on multiple platforms, HurLoss® is the most widely published and peer-reviewed model available to the insurance industry for catastrophe modeling.
“HurLoss® provides insurers with a solid foundation of reliable, proven hurricane modeling to help manage risk while keeping an eye toward future peril. These enhancements will help ensure HurLoss® continues to provide unparalleled insight into the potential impacts of hurricanes.”
George Freimarck, ARA catastrophe modeling business leader.
