The Bermuda Risk Summit will feature sessions examining the rising threat of wildfire and conflagration risk as insurers and reinsurers grapple with mounting losses and changing exposure patterns.

The Bermuda Business Development Agency said the discussions will take place next Wednesday, March 11, and will bring together catastrophe modellers, risk engineers and industry leaders to explore how the market can respond to the growing challenge.

Wildfires and severe weather events have produced multi-billion-dollar insured losses across North America and other regions. Some of the worst outcomes are driven by conflagrations, which are fires that spread rapidly through built environments and often do not behave like traditional wildfires.

Bermuda re/insurers absorb many of these. Last year, the industry saw losses of $10 billion to cover the damaging effects of the January California wildfires alone, or around 30 per cent of the total, according to Bermuda Monetary Authority estimates.

A keynote session titled “Beyond the Fireline: Conflagration Risk” will be delivered by David Torgerson, chairman and founder of Wildfire Defence Systems. It will be followed by a panel discussion on how insurers, reinsurers and capital providers can develop a more integrated response to wildfire risk.

David Parker, head of business development at the BDA, said wildfire risk has become a broader issue for the insurance industry.

“Wildfire risk is no longer confined to the wildland interface. It is increasingly a capital and insurability issue,” he said.

Mr Parker added that Bermuda plays a key role in connecting global risk with the capital needed to absorb it.

The Bermuda Risk Summit brings together insurers, reinsurers, brokers, regulators and investors to examine trends shaping the global risk transfer market.