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Catastrophe risk modelling

Modelling the aggregate financial impact of natural and man-made catastrophes on an insurance portfolio — hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, flood, cyber, terrorism. The output feeds reinsurance purchasing, capital requirements, and underwriting concentration limits.

The three rungs

Legacy

Catastrophe exposure measured by hand with engineering-informed rules of thumb; no stochastic model, no simulation over 10,000 years of synthetic storms.

Modern

Cloud SaaS and classical ML; tools founded roughly 1995 – 2015.

AI-native

Built around deep learning or LLMs from day one; tools founded mostly post-2015.

Risk Management Solutions (RMS), founded 1988 and acquired by Moody's in 2021 for $2B, is the category's defining incumbent alongside Verisk's AIR Worldwide (now Verisk Extreme Event Solutions). The modern generation of cat modelling is dominated by those two houses, with Moody's RMS now branded as part of the Moody's Insurance Solutions platform. AI-native disruption is active at the edges — new hazard models, machine-learning emulators, AI-driven vulnerability curves — but has not yet displaced the incumbents' 30-year catalogue of calibrated models.

Ranked comparison

5 tools covered · methodology
  1. #1 · modern · actuarial

    Moody's RMS

    www.rms.com ↗
    14/20
    70%

    The incumbent catastrophe-risk-modelling platform for insurers and reinsurers. 400+ models spanning natural and man-made perils across nearly 100 countries; 250+ insurance and financial-services firms on the Intelligent Risk Platform. Acquired by Moody's for $2B in 2021.

    traction
    3/5
    maturity
    5/5
    coverage
    4/5
    recognition
    2/5
  2. 13/20
    65%

    Catastrophe-risk modelling platform for insurers, reinsurers, and brokers. 100+ models spanning natural and man-made perils across nearly 100 countries. Founded as Applied Insurance Research in 1987; acquired by Verisk in 2002; rebranded from AIR Worldwide to Extreme Event Solutions in January 2022.

    traction
    2/5
    maturity
    5/5
    coverage
    4/5
    recognition
    2/5
  3. #3 · modern · data-platform

    CoreLogic

    www.corelogic.com ↗
    10/20
    50%

    Property data and hazard-risk platform that powers underwriting, claims workflow, and catastrophe modeling for US P&C carriers.

    traction
    2/5
    maturity
    5/5
    coverage
    2/5
    recognition
    1/5
  4. #4 · ai-native · reinsurance

    Arbol

    www.arbol.io ↗
    10/20
    50%

    Climate-risk parametric insurance and reinsurance platform. Closed a $60M Series B in April 2024 co-led by Opera Tech Ventures and Giant Ventures, putting Arbol in the same parametric-insurance VC orbit as Descartes Underwriting. New York-headquartered; writes weather-index cover for US agriculture, renewable energy, commercial property, and specialty wildfire risk, with capacity placed through a Bermuda MGU, a London Lloyd's cover holder, and a wholly-owned US homeowners carrier.

    traction
    2/5
    maturity
    3/5
    coverage
    3/5
    recognition
    2/5
  5. #5 · ai-native · underwriting-workstation

    Descartes Underwriting

    descartesunderwriting.com ↗
    9/20
    45%

    Paris-headquartered parametric MGA and underwriting-tech group writing climate, natural-catastrophe, cyber, and emerging-risk policies on behalf of tier-one carriers, with index-based payouts designed to settle within weeks.

    traction
    1/5
    maturity
    3/5
    coverage
    3/5
    recognition
    2/5