Foreword
Benfield and PartnerRe are proud to present the second edition of the Hazard & Risk Science Review.

The exposures faced by the world’s insurance markets to natural catastrophes were again highlighted in 2004. The record number of Pacific typhoons and severe hurricane damage across much of Florida, the south east United States and Caribbean caused insured catastrophe losses of more than US$35billion. These losses, followed by the devastating tsunami in Asia and further damage most recently from Hurricane Katrina in the United States, reaffirmed the ongoing need for the industry to understand and analyse natural and environmental risks in order to develop appropriate insurance and reinsurance solutions.

This 2005 issue of the Review, commissioned from UCL’s Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, provides a digest of over 60 scientific papers published during the last 12 months of relevance to the insurance market, focusing on the four major areas of hazard – atmospheric, geological, hydrological and climate change.

Both of our organisations have a long standing commitment to research and we hope that this Review will come to be seen as the industry’s reference publication of choice on emerging risk science.