American farmers paying $2.1 billion a year to insure against hail damage, these two weather conditions are of great interest to insurers and reinsurers.

And the Bermuda Biological Station's Risk Protection Initiative is tomorrow and Friday hosting a high-level tornado and hail workshop to look at how science can help reduce the impact of severe weather on insurers.

Workshop participants will include insurers, reinsurers and weather experts from the US, Canada and Europe.

The workshop is designed to introduce insurers to the latest in severe weather research.

It will also look at whether cloud seeding reduces hail risks and aims to educate scientists about the types of severe weather data and research insurers find most relevant.

And the workshop hopes to identify areas where further insurance-relevant research is most needed.

Studying the severe weather in North America is a fundamental part of the insurance industry. It is worth billions of dollars in premiums and has a heavy cost in lives -- this year alone tornadoes in the United States have killed 27 people and 30 in Canada.

The Risk Protection Initiative (RPI) was set up to facilitate a working relationship between scientists and the business world.

It helps the businesses that can benefit from climate-related information and predictions get in touch with the people who do the research.

The RPI holds regular workshops for its industry sponsors on a number of key insurance and reinsurance issues.

Corporate sponsors of RPI include XL Mid Ocean Re, General Re, Renaissance Re, ACE USA Inc., Zurich Group/Centre Solutions (Bermuda) Ltd, Employers Re, AIG/IPC Re, American Re, State Farm, USAA and Swiss Re.

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