Past Conferences

The World Forum of Catastrophe Programs (WFCP), a gathering of professionals whose organizations are dedicated to enhancing global resilience, convened in Bucharest, Romania, from September 19th to 22nd, 2023, the meeting being held at the end of Romania’s rotative presidency of the WFCP. This annual event brought together more than 20 professionals from 15 countries, fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing among experts in the field of catastrophe risk management.

The conference covered a wide range of critical topics, including insights into PAID Romania's Catastrophic Claims Management Plan, lessons learned from the TCIP (Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool) following the that country’s February 6, 2023, earthquake, navigating operational challenges in the current economic climate by TREIF (Taiwan Residential Earthquake Insurance Fund), the Catastrophic Modelling Platform improved by TurkRe and T-Rupt, system updates of the Swiss Association of Public Insurance companies for real estate, the reinsurance market and improvement of regulations and technical systems within the Natural Catastrophe Insurance of Iceland (NTI), about the role of exposure and changes in hazard levels as risk drivers in Spain, about the principles and main challenges of the French Nat Cat scheme, about the activities of the Norwegian Agriculture Agency, about FloodRe and the future of flood risk management, about the compensation for severe damages on buildings caused by drought in Denmark, about establishing a Cyclone Reinsurance Pool for Australia and strategies for improving resilience to natural hazards in New Zealand.

Participants also had the opportunity to engage in a captivating panel discussion on the role of climate change as a driving force behind the evolving risk landscape. Experts from Switzerland, the UK, the Caribbean, and Spain shared their perspectives, shedding light on the global implications of climate-related risks.

Ms. Nicoleta Radu, CEO of PAID Romania and the event host, emphasized the significance of such gatherings, stating, "The World Forum of Catastrophe Programs plays a crucial role in promoting collaboration and knowledge-sharing among global professionals in the field. This exchange of good practices and experiences is invaluable in our collective mission to enhance resilience and protect communities worldwide."

During the time spent in Bucharest, the participants also attended a meeting at the Romanian National Institute for Earth Physics, where the topics covered were: estimating and mitigating seismic risk factors, Romania seismic hazard in the light of past & recent seismicity and the seismic monitoring of structures.

The success of this year's event has set the stage for the next meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programs, which is scheduled to take place next year, continuing the tradition of facilitating global collaboration and innovation in the field of catastrophe risk management.

On September 20 and 21, 2022, the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) hosted the 15th annual meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes, in a global videoconference spanning time zones from California to New Zealand. The Forum is an informal global platform for the voluntary exchange of ideas, expertise, and practices among government-created or government-sponsored insurance programs covering natural catastrophes. The Forum membership includes 16 member programs, with the Morocco Solidarity Fund for Catastrophic Events (FSEC) being formally accepted into the Forum at this year’s meeting.

CEA was one of the Forum’s founding members in 2006 and has served as the Forum’s President since 2019. The President’s main role is to organize and host the annual meeting, which is typically held face-to-face, in the home country of the presidency—but because of the impacts of the global pandemic, the CEA hosted three online meetings over the past three years. This year’s four-hour meeting was held as two 2-hour video-conference sessions on each day.
During the meeting, each member organization presented updates about their organization and discussed how they are dealing with priority discussion topics that Forum members had pre-selected:

• Exposure growth, a hardening reinsurance market, and shrinking private insurance coverage
• Technology and operational innovations to improve service effectiveness
• Addressing new climate-related impacts, organizational shifts and expanding coverages for climate
• Funding for prevention and mitigation

Host and Forum president CEA presented on exposure-growth challenges, enhancements to CEA’s earthquake organizational and claim readiness, the California Wildfire Fund, and the Earthquake Brace + Bolt program. For CEA, Laurie Johnson and Danny Marshall led the planning for this year’s Forum meeting; Glenn Pomeroy and Tom Welsh joined the discussions; and Kelli Guerriero and Laura Spahr provided logistical support.

To close the meeting, CEA’s Laurie Johnson formally passed the World Forum Presidency to the Romanian Insurance Pool Against Natural Disasters (PAID). PAID CEO Nicoleta Radu-Neacsu accepted the top Forum office and announced that PAID will endeavor to host the Forum membership in September 2023 as an in-person meeting.

The membership of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes (WFCP) reached a consensus not to hold its 2020 annual meeting in Sacramento, California, as previously planned—by consent of Forum members, and the next in-person Forum meeting is to be postponed until 2021 and will be held in Sacramento.

In lieu of an in-person conference this year, Forum President California Earthquake Authority (CEA) proposed a videoconference of all Forum members on 22nd September.

In this online meeting, WFCP members openly discussed the status of the COVID-19 pandemic in each country, organizational planning efforts ahead of the pandemic, and lessons and insights on working remotely.

Natural Catastrophe Insurance of Iceland organized the 13th WFCP meeting from the 24th to 26th of September in Iceland.

Members of the Forum presented developments, business updates and other information from their respective organizations. For instance that the California Earthquake Authority has been asked to administer the newly established California Wildfire Fund and the Landsbruksdirektoratet shared the challenges of moving their offices across country while retaining the knowledge that has been built up within the organization.

The meeting took place both in Reykjavík and at Aurora Lodge, near Hvolsvollur, where members were presented with scientific lectures on the volcanic activity in Iceland and on the Police Commisioner in Hvolsvollur preperations and experience with evacuating areas prone to flooding due to volcanic activities.

Members were able to witness the geothermal energy in Iceland and see how it has been harnessed throughout the years as well as see evidence of the melting glaciers in Iceland.

CCS organized the 12th WFCP meeting from 26 to 28 September 2018 in Madrid (Spain).

Members updated each other about their recent developments, such as the new lines of activity of CCRIF, the new name and setting of the Icelandic NTI or the new CCS' tariff for the Extraordinary Risk Insurance.

In this meeting the first Memorandum of Understanding establishing the rules and procedures of the WFCP, as well as the new design of this webpage, were adopted by all members.

The meeting was complemented by a series of scientific lectures devoted in this occasion to the rise of sea level as a consequence of global warming, as well as to the assessment of tsunami risk.

Finally, a visit was paid to the Centre for Hydrographic Studies at CEDEX (Centre for Studies and Experimentation of Public Works). Besides receiving first-hand information on activities involving modelling for river overflows and demarcating floodable zones, attendees had the chance to visit the laboratory where physical models of hydraulic works and their environmental impact are made, which are also useful for validating the results from the numerical models.

The eleventh Forum meeting thus took place from 26 to 28 September 2017 in Taipei (Taiwan). The chief merit or this meeting was restoring contact among members, who at all times upheld the usefulness of keeping open this forum for dialogue and mutual enlightenment. The TREIF management team deserves special recognition for making themselves available, and their swiftness and effort in organising this meeting.

It was joined by the UK’s Flood Re as a full member of the WFCP, who presented a round-up of its first year in operation for those in attendance.

The CEA described its reinsurance system and other members, such as Norway, presented on legislative news, or organisational innovations, such as developments in the reorganisation of the Swiss system that had been previously introduced in Paris. 

From 21st to 24th September 2015, the X Conference of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programs (WFCP) was held in Paris. The WFCP is an international platform that brings together natural disaster coverage systems in the world that have some type of public participation. The conference was organized by the Caisse Centrale de Réassurance (CCR) of France and representatives of the systems operating in California, the Caribbean, France, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Taiwan and Turkey attended to this meeting. The representatives of Flood Re from the United Kingdom and the African Risk Capacity (ARC) attended as guests.

Apart from the sessions focused on the updating of information about the WFCP member systems, those addressing the presentation of the new systems were of special interest: Flood Re, whose start-up for flood coverage will take place at the beginning of 2016; and ARC, a system created in 2012, that covers the African countries members (26 until now) against drought, flood and cyclone, using the parametric insurance formula. The presentation of the CCR’s work in relation to the financial assessment of the effects of climate change in France in the 2050 horizon attracted attendants’ attention as well.

The 19th annual meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes was held in Christchurch 22-26 September. The meeting was attended by 19 delegates representing the following countries: France, USA, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan and New Zealand.

Organized by the Norwegian Natural Perils Pool and the Norwegian Agricultural Authority, held in Alesund (Norway), from 16 to 19 September. The meeting was attended by representatives of 16 systems, corresponding to 14 countries, including Denmark (Storm Council) and Thailand (NCIF), which have been incorporated as new members of the Forum. This informal platform, which brings together coverage of disasters with public participation systems, happens to be composed of 17 systems, from 15 countries. Several interventions were distributed in the following blocks:
1) Adaptation to a new climate.
2) Experiences on activities to raise awareness of the public and local authorities on natural hazards.
3) Obligations of owners of real estate in risk mitigation.
4) The use of GIS as a source of analysis of risks.
5) News and upgrades the formation relative to the members of the forum systems.

From September 24th to 27th, the 7th Conference of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programs (WFCP) took place in Spiez (Switzerland). This forum brings together the natural catastrophe and terrorism coverage systems with public participation, and offers an informal platform for the exchange of information and experiences among the different insurance schemes.

The members made known the development and the news of their systems during the last year. Among these interventions, the presentation of New Zealand in relation to the various seismic events that affected that country in recent times, was particularly relevant, with special reference to the important disaster suffered by the city of Christchurch. The intervention of Switzerland was also remarkable and it was focused on the operation of monopolistic companies, the coverage of damages due to natural disasters, their reinsurance system and their risk prevention and mitigation strategy.

Those attending the conference had the opportunity to make known on the field the plans for prevention and protection against floods adopted at the Nidwalden canton, especially in the environment of the cantonal hospital.

The VI Meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes (WFCP) was held in Montego Bay (Jamaica) from 24th to 27th October 2011, organized by the CCRIF. Apart from the traditional updating of information on the different systems represented, the following topics were addressed:

- Insurance experiences of the latest earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand by the Japan Earthquake Reinsurance (JER) and the Earthquake Commission (EQC), respectively.
- Exhaustive analysis of the operation and challenges of the Caribbean coverage system, the CCRIF (Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility).
- Exposition of the operation and perspectives of the California earthquake system, the CEA (California Earthquake Authority).
- Presentation on the French pool of terrorism coverage, GAREAT.
- Presentation of a comparative table of terrorism coverage in ten countries of the world, by the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros, which also offered data on the accident rate related to the Lorca earthquake.

The V Meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes (WFCP) took place in Bucharest from 11th to 14th October. The representatives of the different countries that participated in these conferences made known the evolution and changes registered in their respective systems. In some of these interventions, the allusions to Solvency II focused the discussion.

However, there were three presentation of special interest: the presentation of Iceland about the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano and the accident rate management by the Icelandic Catastrophe Insurance; the Spanish presentation on the management of the loss caused by the storm Klaus and the conclusions obtained; and, finally, the presentation of the French system of terrorism coverage by the representative of GAREAT (Management of Insurance and Reinsurance of the Risks of Bombings and Terrorist Acts), an insurance mechanism that becomes part of the WFCP.

This meeting was held in Taipei, between September 28 and 30, 2009, and brought together representatives from 14 countries: Australia (ARPC), Caribbean (CCRIF), Spain (CCS), United States (CEA of California), Philippines (Comisyon NG Seguro), France (CCR), Indonesia (MAIPARK), Iceland (ICI), Japan (JER), Norway (NNPP), New Zealand (EQC), Romania (PRAC and Insurance Supervision), Switzerland (IRV) and Taiwan (TREIF).

As a remarkable novelty it should be noted that, on the initiative of the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros, the representation of the different systems, until now limited to those operating in natural catastrophe coverage, will include those that cover the risk of terrorism.

Among the topics discussed, it has to be emphasized the detailed presentation of the content of the World Forum website, prepared and managed by the CCS, the presentation of the new assisting countries (Indonesia and the Philippines), the updated information of some systems (CEA, CCRIF, JER, TREIF, ICI, EQC, PRAC and CCR) and the development of specific discussion topics like the "Comparative study on pricing systems and risk transfer" (presented by Ignacio Machetti, CCS' General Director), "Approach to the global market for catastrophe reinsurance" (by EQC, New Zealand) and "Simulation exercise around a storm" (By NNPP, Norway).
At the closing session, the President (Rector) of the National Central University of Taipei gave a speech on the current state of the research on climate change.

The III Meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes (WFCP) was held in Hveragerði (Iceland), from 25th to 26th September 2008, and the following representatives of the various programmes attended the meeting: The Caribbean Islands (CCRIF), France (CCR), Iceland (Viðlagatrygging Íslands), Japan (JED), New Zealand (EQC), Norway (Norwegian Financial Natural Perils Pool and Norwegian National Fund for Natural Damage Assistance), Romania (PRAC), Spain (CCS), Switzerland (IRV), Taiwan (TREIF), Turkey (TCIP) and USA-California (CEA). Representatives from OECD and World Bank attended as guests.

Each member organization presented their programmes, past and planned activities and any major development. Besides they discussed about other topics like WFCP website, risk transfer mechanism, the role of WFCP…

The II Meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes (WFCP) took place in Madrid, 17th September 2007, and the following participants attended the meeting: The Caribbean countries (CCRIF), France (CCR), Iceland (ICI), New Zealand (EQC), Norway (Norwegian Financial Natural Perils Pool and Norwegian National Fund for Natural Damage Assistance), Switzerland (IRV), Taiwan (TREIF), Turkey (Garanti Insurance and General Directorate of Insurance), USA-California (CEA) and Spain (CCS).

The attendants, apart from making known the updates regarding developments in their own systems, dealt with the following issues:

- World Forum Website project.
- Exchange of statistical data.
- Plans for ongoing work between meetings.
- Relationships with international bodies like World Bank and OECD.
- Further meetings, nature, format and purpose.
- Climate change.

The I Meeting of the World Forum of Catastrophe Programmes (WFCP) was held in San Francisco on 20th April 2006 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary Earthquake Conference Commemorating the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. California Earthquake Authority (CEA) offered to host the meeting and provided the meeting facilities.

This was a private and informal meeting of people representing catastrophe programmes from California, France, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Spain. The main topics addressed in this meeting were the following:

- Introduction of the various catastrophe programmes.
- Risk and hazard modelling.
- Loss adjustment.
- The role of the private sector.
- Assistance to others.
- Transboundary disasters.
- The role of reinsurance.
- Mitigation measures.
- The next steps and future activity.
- Quality of data.