After the Spokane wildfires, analysts asked Avista less about the fire itself than about who pays. Cost recovery, insurance and wildfire securitization dominated the Q&A—a sign wildfire risk is becoming a utility financing issue as much as an operational one. www.riskmarketnews.com/spokane-wild...

Spokane Wildfires Reveal How Costs Are Becoming a Utility Financing Question

Analysts quickly shifted from wildfire damage to cost recovery, securitization and insurance, highlighting how investors increasingly view wildfires as a utility financing challenge rather than simply...

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What happens if AI upends risk markets? Harvard Business School's Alex Chan explains why the future of risk markets may be shaped as much by technology companies as traditional insurers. 🎥 Full conversation: youtu.be/sgCMon-_jZg?... 🎧 Audio podcast: pod.link/1825669405/e...

Interactive Brokers plans to list hurricane-landfall contracts on a public exchange, chairman Thomas Peterffy said on the Q2 call. Catastrophe risk is getting a ticker banks, asset managers & property investors can trade. www.riskmarketnews.com/interactive-...

Interactive Brokers Moves to List Hurricane Risk, Opening Catastrophe Bets to Mainstream Traders

Interactive Brokers is preparing to list hurricane-landfall contracts on a public exchange, handing banks, asset managers and property investors a direct line to catastrophe risk long confined to the ...

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"Clusters of data centers become potentially massive single-loss events." Jane Kim, first-place finisher for CA Insurance Commissioner, on data centers as "wildfire multipliers" 🎧 Full episode: pod.link/1825669405/e... 📺 YouTube youtu.be/eJFuevABNmM?...

Matt Duffy, Neptune Flood, at yesterday's Risky Science Live: "Just over 80% of our portfolio is net new to the flood insurance space." Not NFIP migration. Expansion — mostly outside FEMA's mapped flood zones. Full panel:https://youtu.be/eaDmd_z3X6U?si=rh40lFOs6TEsj0Ws

"That's not a healthy market — that's a hostage situation." Jane Kim, first-place finisher for CA Insurance Commissioner, on the raise-rates-or-exit standoff — and why she wants a public, nonprofit disaster insurer, 🎧 Full episode: youtu.be/eJFuevABNmM?...

Why does hurricane coverage cost far more than expected losses? New research points to costly capital and limited competition in offshore reinsurance. When regulatory barriers fell, reinsurance prices dropped—and the savings reached Florida homeowners. www.riskmarketnews.com/offshore-rei...

Offshore Reinsurance and Why Hurricane Coverage Costs More Than the Risk

Costly capital and limited competition in offshore reinsurance inflate hurricane premiums, and how much homeowners could save if those barriers fall.

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New research maps the U.S. flood "hotspots" where sprawl, vulnerability & rising water collide — 22M people, $7B+ in losses, and a protection gap widening fastest just outside the federal flood line. The static map can't see it. www.riskmarketnews.com/flood-hotspo...

Flood 'Hotspots' Are Clustering Throughout US and Outrunning the Insurance Map

New research maps America's fastest-growing flood "hotspots" — 22 million people concentrated along the Gulf Coast and Southeast — and finds they're absorbing billions in losses the insurance map neve...

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"The current trajectory is just not sustainable." — CA State Sen. Ben Allen on the FAIR Plan: oversubscribed, undercapitalized, and never built to be a long-term insurer for hundreds of thousands of Californians. Full clip + episode: pod.link/1825669405/e... #Insurance

OpenAI and Meta disclosed the same day: their newest models hit "catastrophic" bio and cyber capability levels — and even the small, cheap tier now crosses the line. Only safeguards hold them there, not any limit on the capability. www.riskmarketnews.com/even-the-che... #AI #Cyber #Biosecurity

Even the Cheap AI Models Now Cross the Bio and Cyber Risk Line

Frontier AI's cheap tier now reaches "catastrophic" bio and cyber capability levels — and both OpenAI and Meta admit only safeguards keep it there.

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"Risk doesn't disappear, it gets allocated." — CA State Sen. Ben Allen, running for Insurance Commissioner, on where wildfire risk actually lands: utility rates, premiums, the FAIR Plan, disaster costs, underinsured families. Full episode: youtu.be/gvwTyxcTnBE?...

New Risky Science Podcast: the recent Venezuela earthquake that devastated Caracas. Earthquake engineer Ziggy Lubkowski (Arup) on why buildings fall—and a stat that stuck with me: every $1 spent on resilience up front saves $6 after disaster. 🎧 pod.link/1825669405/e...

The next Risky Science Live. Wednesday, July 22, 2 p.m. ET — US Flood: Risk, Markets & Models. The NFIP heading into another funding battle in September. And the private flood market has roughly doubled since 2020 but is still only about 10% of the total. What's next? riverside.com/webinar/regi...

Can a prediction market fact-check your cat model? When a vendor update lifts hurricane risk 50% from the hazard side, the whole reinsurance stack feels it. Prediction markets give an independent read—price is probability. 🎧 Latest Risky Science Pod youtu.be/bAEMeQfcmuI?...

"Models that are less wrong are more useful." Karen Clark is warning reinsurers & ILS managers that bolting homemade multipliers onto aging cat models is running out of road and why AI tightens the once-"secondary" perils fastest. New on RMN 👇 www.riskmarketnews.com/kccs-clark-s...

KCC's Clark: Same Models, Different Rules

Karen Clark warns reinsurers and ILS managers that the practice of layering homemade multipliers onto aging catastrophe models is running out of road and explains why AI will tighten the once-dismiss...

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An estimated $8.2 trillion in projected U.S. data center investment and the aggregate exposure across finance, accounting, and insurance is beginning to concern market participants — raising fundamental questions about where risk ultimately resides. www.riskmarketnews.com/ai-data-cent...

AI Data Center Finance: Off-Balance-Sheet Leverage, Physical Risk Accumulation, and Insurance Capacity Constraints

The AI data center buildout is rewriting the rules of infrastructure finance — and the risk is ending up somewhere most investors aren't looking.

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On Risky Science Live, an ILS portfolio manager publicly hand-raised for a hurricane ILW prediction market contract: "I know who'll be on one of the sides when you put up an ILW-based contract." — Vijay Manghnani, CIO, King Ridge Capital Clip below. Full hour on the Risky Science podcast feed.

2020: 10 landfalling U.S. hurricanes. Insured losses below average. Why? None hit a major populated area. "What are the three most important things? Location, location, location." — Karen Clark Basin activity has almost no predictive value for insured losses in a single year. youtu.be/bAEMeQfcmuI

2pm EDT today. How markets and models are looking at the same risk: 2026 North Atlantic Hurricane. Register to join the discussion with risk finance and science professionals. www.riskmarketnews.com/how-markets-...

2026 Hurricane Season Outlook: Risk, Market and Models

A live Risky Science Podcast event

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David Einhorn opened a $125M PG&E position in late 2025. Bank of America trimmed utility shares the same quarter and bought wildfire-exposed insurers instead. Both bets can't be right. How AB 1054 + AI datacenter demand split institutional capital. www.riskmarketnews.com/how-californ...

How California's Wildfire Bust Became Hedge Funds' AI Boom (And Why Banks Took the Other Side)

The perfect market-dislocation play driven by wildfires, California's energy utility sector was made for activist and credit funds trading on companies buckling under ballooning liabilities. The AI-dr...

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This morning's RMN Morning Brief top: Greg Abel is concentrating hard, physical, climate-correlated risk on the asset side just as the premium income meant to compensate for that risk thins. #insurance #reinsurance #wildfire www.riskmarketnews.com/the-first-po...

The First Post-Buffett Deal Tilts Berkshire Toward Physical Risk

Risk, models and markets

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NOAA called 2026 hurricne season to below normal. The reinsurance, cat bond, and prediction markets are pricing something else. Ten days from now, we work through why. Thursday, June 11 · 2:00 PM EDT · Free. → Register: www.riskmarketnews.com/how-markets-...

2026 Hurricane Season Outlook: Risk, Market and Models

A live Risky Science Podcast event

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1992 had six named storms — well below average. It also had Hurricane Andrew. Why a "below normal" 2026 outlook doesn't mean below-normal pricing: www.riskmarketnews.com/before-hurri...

Before Hurricane Season Starts, Markets Are Trying to Price The Risk Models Can't Capture

As the 2026 Hurricane seasons starts on Monday, risk and market professionals are playing a different El Niño hedge.

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www.riskmarketnews.com/how-markets-...

Imperial College London models the current Ebola outbreak in DRC at 400-800 cases, possibly above 1,000. WHO has declared a PHEIC. A U.S. citizen has tested positive. The World Bank's pandemic cat bond was shut down in 2020. No successor exists. www.riskmarketnews.com/ebola-new-ou...

Ebola: New Outbreak, Same Market Gap

Modeling suggests the Bundibugyo virus outbreak in the DRC may already be twice the official case count, and the private market architecture built to respond to exactly this kind of possible global ev...

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California's utility wildfire fund was built on math that's all proven wrong — every assumption. Now Sacramento is designing a replacement that looks a lot like reinsurance. www.riskmarketnews.com/californias-...

California's Wildfire Fund Was Mispriced And Now It's Shopping for a Replacement

The state's energy industry is searching for a new financial backstop to absorb wildfire losses that have already outrun every model built to contain them.

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New Census research flips the flood risk narrative: it's the wealthiest Americans — not the most vulnerable — who now carry the greatest floodplain exposure. 19% of the top 1% of earners live in flood zones. Add second homes and that's 1 in 4. www.riskmarketnews.com/the-wealthie...

The Wealthiest Americans Now Carry the Most Flood Exposure. Models Don't Reflect That.

New Census Bureau research confirms what private flood insurers have been betting on: flood exposure is concentrating among the wealthiest Americans, and the market is moving to follow it.

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What are markets and models saying about the 2026 hurricane season. Join the Risky Sceince Live event. www.riskmarketnews.com/how-markets-...

Ten days into the hurricane new season, three professionals who price and model hurricane risk for a living sit down for an hour and discuss how are existing risk markets are adapting to uncertainty. www.riskmarketnews.com/how-markets-...

How Markets and Models Are Reading The 2026 Hurricane Season

Join a live Risky Science Podcast discussion

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Berkshire's PacifiCorp won an Oregon appellate reversal on its landmark wildfire class action — but $2.9B in cumulative loss accruals and 1,760 pending plaintiff claims tell a different story. The liability isn't closed. It's restructured. www.riskmarketnews.com/berkshire-no...

Berkshire Notches Wildfire Win, But Earnings Show Long-Term Liability Remains Unresolved

Berkshire Hathaway's first quarter filing reveals $2.9 billion in cumulative wildfire loss accruals at PacifiCorp even after a significant Oregon appellate reversal — leaving a liability architecture ...

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