A former top officer of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has cautioned re/insurers against over-relying on artificial intelligence to understand windstorm risks, asserting that no uncrewed platform can replace crewed hurricane penetrations.

Vice-Admiral Nancy Hann, who retired in March, delivered a keynote address entitled “Lessons from the Eye of the Storm”, addressing global leaders from the reinsurance, insurance-linked securities, and cat bond sectors at ILS Bermuda Convergence 2026 at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club.

Ultimately, Ms Hann called for continued collaboration between scientific agencies and financial markets, arguing that high-quality observational data remains the single most effective tool for reducing uncertainty and managing catastrophic risk.

Reflecting on her 30-year military and scientific career in environmental data collection, Ms Hann outlined how NOAA’s airborne and marine missions gather the essential data that underpins global catastrophe risk modelling, weather forecasting and loss reduction.

But she said there remains some uncertainty about how the collected information was being transmitted. She sought from the industry any dialogue as to exactly what they needed from NOAA.

“Are the communications happening in a way that’s useful to you?” she asked. “And if not, what are the places in that chain of events or in that value chain that can be improved?

“Because if the communications to the public, to the industry, to the users of the data aren’t successful, the data really isn't being collected in the right ways or for the right reason.”

She joined the NOAA in 1996 as a fisheries observer, received her commission in the NOAA Corps in 1999, and rose through the ranks to become the first female vice-admiral in the service's history, before retiring this March.

As a NOAA Corps captain in 2017, she assumed command of the NOAA Aircraft Operations Centre in Lakeland, Florida, home to the agency’s nine environmental research, reconnaissance and survey aircraft, including the agency’s “hurricane hunter” planes.

Ms Hann emphasised that while NOAA sits within the US Department of Commerce to protect public safety, its observational data directly drives commercial stability across global markets.

She said: “We sit within Department of Commerce, and that's because all of the data that we collect, all of the missions that we do are for commerce.

“They’re for public safety, but they're ultimately for commerce to drive the economy, not just of the US, but of the world.”

Highlighting NOAA’s multilayered observation network — combining satellites, ocean gliders, sail drones, and hurricane hunter aircraft — she demonstrated how direct physical measurements eliminate critical forecast errors.

To illustrate the stakes, Ms Hann pointed to September missions into Category 5 Hurricane Polo, where P-3 aircraft recorded central pressures of 892 millibars and 180mph winds, significantly outpacing satellite estimates.

Direct aircraft data improves hurricane track forecasting accuracy by over 15 per cent and intensity forecasts by 10 per cent to 15 per cent.

Over the past three decades, average 48-hour track forecast errors have plummeted from over 250 nautical miles down to 55 nautical miles.

Such precision, she said, yields substantial financial benefits, such as saving approximately $600 million by avoiding an unnecessary evacuation of Houston during the 2020 Hurricane Laura.

The vice-admiral also detailed NOAA’s recapitalisation efforts, including replacing 50-year-old P-3 Orions with new C-130s and custom Gulfstream G550 aircraft to guarantee data continuity through 2030 and beyond.

She also highlighted technological breakthroughs, including deploying uncrewed aircraft systems directly inside hurricane eyewalls to monitor the crucial air-sea interface.