News Focus - Lloyd's climate-change debate falls short, says Ascot.

(From Reinsurance)

A leading Lloyd's underwriter has criticised the market's opening debate on climate change for providing "little true weight" and only "predictable rhetoric".

Matthew Washington, aggregate manager at Ascot Underwriting, said of the Lloyd's 360 Debate on Climate Change held on 6 July: "Following Katrina in 2005, the general debate surrounding the impact of climate change on insured losses has intensified. This has been seen across many aspects of the insurance industry and, in particular, catastrophe modelling, where vendors have rushed their progressively more prudent models to market, with both RMW and AIR also releasing models that are skewed based on climatic changes and, in particular, rising sea-surface temperatures.

"It is therefore unsurprising (and much welcomed) that Lloyd's has chosen to formalise the debate. Lloyd's chairman Lord Peter Levene made it clear in his opening remarks that Lloyd's wants this project to be more than just 'hot air' and does not want to be branded a talking shop, as had been indicated in a recent Financial Times article.

"However, while I had high expectations of the Catastrophe Trends discussion and the speakers were eloquent and well informed, I found little novelty or true weight in the debate, and much of the rhetoric I had heard before. While some scientists may ...