Women in reinsurance
PrOFILE Name:
Karen Clark
Company: Karen Clark & Company Job:
President and CEO
Timeline: 2007—Co-founded Karen Clark & Company
1987—Developed first catastrophe model
Karen Clark developed the first catastrophe model and founded the first modelling company, Applied Insurance Research (AIR), in 1987.
Clark led the development of models and software applications
that have been used globally over the past two decades as standard tools for catastrophe risk assessment and management. She grew AIR to a top modelling firm that was acquired by Insurance Services Office (ISO) in 2002.
Currently, Clark is the president and CEO of Karen Clark & Company, a firm she co-founded in 2007 to consult with leading insurers and reinsurers and to work on the next generation of catastrophe risk management tools.
Clark has been recognised for her contributions to the insurance industry, including being honoured as Woman of the Year by the Association of Professional Insurance Women (APIW) in 2001. She was honoured with an award certificate for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for her support of the work of the IPCC since its inception.
“My work has always been fascinating, and I’ve travelled the
world and established relationships with the best and brightest in the industry,” she says. “Because I made a large profit when I sold AIR to ISO some may have thought that was the highlight and possible end of my career. But it was neither and I’m still at it—there are certainly many more highlights to come.”
Twice Clark has disrupted the status quo and launched new
technology to improve the way companies understand and manage catastrophe risk.
“Getting the industry to adopt something new—even if it’s clearly better—is very difficult,” she says. “It takes a lot of
expertise to develop innovative solutions, and then it takes a lot of energy and tenacity to get companies to embrace the newer and better technology.”
Clark says that because catastrophe models have become so
ingrained in the industry most people don’t know how hard it was to get companies to use the models in the early days. She developed the first hurricane model in the mid-1980s, but it was not until after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 that most insurance companies started using the models. Rating agencies did not start looking at the model numbers until the mid-1990s.
“I’m very proud of the catastrophe models and how they have
served the industry well over the past 25 years, but the models are black boxes and insurers are now demanding more transparency and control over their risk management decisions,” she says.
“My new company has brought to market the first ‘open’
platform for catastrophe risk management, and I’m very excited about working with leading insurers and reinsurers to further enhance this sophisticated approach. This technology empowers our clients to build and customise their own models versus relying on opaque and sometimes volatile information from third party vendors.”
16 | INTELLIgENT INsUrEr | May 2014
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