This will be an interactive talk on natural hazard risk, with a focus on wintertime in the UK and why it might be a good idea to care whether or not the various perils co-occur.
In the UK wintertime storms and floods can cause large losses that can reach billions of pounds, and if they happen at the same time this would be worse! By worse, think “hard to manage”. If we are not prepared it is more likely that critical infrastructure such as road, rail and telecommunications will stop working. Equally, you might like your house insurance to pay for storm damage, which it won’t if your insurer goes bust.
The rare nature of extreme events makes understanding how they might appear in combination difficult, communicating risk is a classic challenge. Let’s entertain ourselves for an hour, whilst touching on some cutting-edge science.
Dr. John Hillier
A Reader in Natural Hazard Risk at the University of Loughborough and has worked in the insurance sector.