Integrated Threshold Development for Parametric Insurance Solutions for Guangdong Province China (INPAIS)

极端气象事件对我国经济发展、社会福利状况的影响是非同寻常的。强热带气旋（TC或台风）的影响至关重要，并导致中国南方，特别是广东省的重大损失。减轻对社会不同部门的严重负面影响的一个方法是开发和应用金融工具，以转移风险和作出适当反应。除了传统的（私人组织的）（再）保险解决方案外，最近，我们的从业合作伙伴瑞士再保险北京分支也为某些领域的测试案例开发了参数保险解决方案。瑞士再保险北京分支目前面临的挑战是为广东省政府的TC指数触发器设计和承保的参数保险计划实现可靠的结构。第一个主要挑战是台风的区域化影响，导致难以可靠估计广东省每个次区域或地级市的损失，这将导致对特定地级市的补偿不足或过度。第二个主要挑战是极端台风的气象信息（以及过去的损失）非常有限和不稳定的性质。因此，参数保险的设计一方面在评估真实的灾害频率和强度方面存在缺陷，另一方面受到历史损失（保险和经济损失）的有限可用性的影响。INPAIS旨在改进灾害风险评估，从而改进广东省的响应触发点。最终，这将导致台风袭击后的快速反应和恢复。为了解决挑战之一，受影响地区损失的区域评估缺失的问题，INPAIS将应用并进一步开发成功的工具，以客观地衡量和量化风暴严重程度（风暴严重程度指数，SSI）基于伯明翰大学的WiTrack算法。该危害评估将允许基于事件进行综合表征。每个台风系统的详细信息（足迹、与损害有关的受影响区域、与气候背景有关的风速信息、路径位置等）将提供。我们的合作研究员叶教授将从中国气象局的档案中收集地级损失的信息，这些信息只能在当地网站和中文中找到。为应对挑战二，即现有物理上一致的气象数据样本少，从而导致对真实的灾害风险及其不确定性的评估不太可靠的问题，将以气候学方法将客观工具应用于业务预报档案TIGGE（THORPEX互动全球大环境）。TIGGE数据集由来自10个全球数值天气预报中心的多模式集合预报数据组成，可用于过去10年。这将允许从相当于大约40，000到50，000年的样本中估计台风的回归水平。将使用国家灾害影响评估信息系统的产出：A）科学家：提供关于区域范围内综合台风灾害（干-湿）更现实的频率-强度分布的信息。这将导致改进对季节性到十年期时间尺度上的灾害不确定性的估计，这是产出所必需的：B）金融工具：改进广东省现有参数台风保险的触发点。这将改善损害/损失与现有保险的匹配。这还将解决特定区域补偿不足或补偿过度的问题，并有可能发展更好的分配机制，最终能够加强快速反应和恢复。

Meteorological extreme events affect China's economic development, society and welfare condition in an extra-ordinary way. The impact of strong tropical cyclones (TCs or Typhoons) is of crucial importance and leading to major losses in southern China, especially in Guangdong Province. One way of mitigating severe, negative impacts on different sectors of society is the development and application of financial instruments for risk transfer and adequate response. Beside classical (privately organised) (re-)insurance solutions, since recently, parametric insurance solutions have been developed for test cases in some areas, as e.g. by SwissRe Beijing Branch, our practitioner partner. The challenge SwissRe Beijing Branch is now facing, is to achieve a reliable structure for the parametric insurance programmes designed and underwritten for TC index triggers for Guangdong Government. The first major challenge is the regionalised effect of Typhoons, leading to difficulties in the robust estimate of losses per sub-region or prefecture level in Guangdong province, which will lead to under- or overcompensating for specific prefectures. The second major challenge is the very limited and instationary nature of meteorological information (as well as for past losses) available for extreme Typhoons.Consequently, the design of parametric insurance has shortcomings in the assessment of the real hazard frequency and intensity on one side and on the other side suffers from limited availability of historic loss (insured and economic loss) to calibrate the impact. INPAIS aims to improve the hazard risk assessment and thus to improve the response trigger points for Guangdong province. Ultimately, this will lead to increased rapid response and recovery after a Typhoon strikes. To address challenge one, the problem of missing regional assessment of losses in affected prefectures, INPAIS will apply and further develop the successful tool to objectively measure and quantify storm severity (Storm Severity Index, SSI) based on the WiTrack algorithm from University of Birmingham. This hazard assessment will allow for an integrated characterisation on event basis. Detailed information per Typhoon system (footprint, area affected in relation to damages; wind speed information relative to climatological background; track location; etc.) will be provided. Our co-investigator, Prof. Ye, will collect information of losses on prefecture level from archives of the Chinese Meteorological Agency, only available in local sites and in Chinese. To address challenge two, the problem of small samples of physically consistent meteorological data available and thus leading to less robust assessments of the real hazard risk and its uncertainty, the objective tool will be applied to the operational forecast archive TIGGE (THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble) in a climatological approach. The TIGGE dataset consists of multi-model ensemble forecast data from 10 global Numerical Weather Prediction centres, available for the last 10 years. This will allow to estimate return-levels of Typhoons out of a sample equivalent to some 40,000 to 50,000 years. The INPAIS outputs will be used: A) Scientifically: To inform about more realistic frequency-intensity distributions of the integrated hazard Typhoon (dry - wet) on a regional scale. This will lead to improved estimates of uncertainties of hazards on seasonal to decadal time scales necessary for output:B) Financial Instrument: to improve the trigger points of the existing parametric Typhoon insurance for Guangdong province. This will led to improved matching of damages/losses and cover existing. This will also tackle the problem of under- or overcompensating in specific regions and the potential development of improved distribution mechanisms, ultimately enabling increased rapid response and recovery.