Political Violence: More art than science – but for how long?

Ample capacity in political violence (PV) business is putting pressure on pricing, prompting questions about analytics within this volatile class of business.

War, political violence and terrorism are lines of business in vogue for many reasons. We are living in interesting times, as the proverb goes, or history is back, as people are increasingly fond of saying.

This is evident through the number of hot wars around the globe, evolving terrorism threats, and fizzling social unrest within many western countries, collectively make for a geopolitically lively new era.

For commercial lines carriers, PV is one of the specialty lines seen as a diversifier from peak property perils or liability business. It has been receiving capacity, including new entrants as well as bigger books for existing players, in such volume that it has consistently outpaced demand in recent years, making for fierce competition.

AdvantageGo’s white paper, published in association with The Political Risk Podcast, focuses on PV’s evolving use of data and analytics, and includes contributions from a range of market participants, including Allianz Commercial, The Fidelis Partnership, Hiscox, Liberty Specialty Markets and Samphire Risk.

It’s still heard that PV is “more art than science”. History, knowledge and context have been everything within this specialty business and will likely always be more vital than in other more commoditised lines of business.

“Curiosity, knowledge and expert judgement are so valuable in this space,” says Charlie Hanbury, CEO, Samphire Risk. “It is those who are most informed about localised, regional and international geopolitical issues, or security threats, that stand the best chance of not exposing their balance sheets to exposure.”

The pressure on pricing is making the chronic need for better analytics feel more acute. Data are limited, analytics elementary, and models – beyond terrorism blast zones – only just beginning to emerge for exposures such as strikes, riots and civil commotion (SRCC).

“The modelling is probably the bit that’s missing most,” says Napoleon Montes, Partner at Hiscox, Head of Hiscox Miami. “What makes our product more difficult is the human element. Where there are humans, there is social unrest but it’s not like cat. The PV in PVT is where we still have a lot of work to do. Most of the tools specific to this business come from terrorism because that’s been the history of this line of business post 9/11.”

For SRCC in particular, carriers are keen to soak up intelligence from a range of sources to feed risk selection, as well as regularly discussing appetite and line sizes to keep a lid on exposures.

“Exposure and portfolio management are at the heart of what we do: we use daily reporting to ensure we understand our exposures,” says Jennie Beard, Underwriting Manager, War and Terrorism, Liberty Specialty Markets.

“From a portfolio perspective we regularly review accumulations to ensure we are not over exposed in any one country, city or blast zone, and consider this by our range of perils we offer,” she says.

“We use scenarios and internal modelling to assist us in our view of these risks. We also engage with security consultants to inform our view of risk, not just focusing on the here-and-now, but forward looking in our approach to a changing risk environment within a territory,” Beard adds.

Underwriters are not just frustrated artists; they are hungry for analytics. This is evident by their tendency to develop in-house tools and indices, while service providers are also increasingly prioritising PV.

“We work very hard to make sure we are not overly reliant on one source of data or analytics,” says Billy Ayres, Head of Terrorism at The Fidelis Partnership. “We want to make sure our decisions are based on as broad an understanding as possible.”

Read the full report here: More Art Than Science: PVT’s Use of Data-Analysis and Modelling Techniques.