GeoInsurance 2024: How Ireland is Responding and Adapting to Climate Change Risks
The GeoInsurance 2024 Webinar is now available to watch on-demand! In this 60-minute session, the speakers explored Ireland's evolving climate risks and provided data-driven solutions for the insurance sector.
Hosted by Gamma Risk's Commercial Director, Richard Garry, we were delighted to welcome our guest speaker, Prof. Peter Thorne, Professor of Physical Geography (Climate Change) at Maynooth University and Director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units (ICARUS).
You'll also hear from Gamma Risk's Head of Spatial & Sustainability, Richard Cantwell, and Chief Data Scientist, Charlotte Cuffe.
Watch On-Demand
What was covered:
Scientific Breakdown of Storm Babet: Peter Thorne, lead scientist of the Midleton flood attribution study, presented the science of climate impacts on flooding.
Floor Protection Gap Report Insights: Richard Cantwell presents the results from the Flood Protection Gap report developed by the Central Bank of Ireland in partnership with Gamma Risk.
"Does your house look like your neighbours' houses?": Charlotte Cuffe presents how clustering addresses unlocks better ways to make data-driven decisions about property risk.
Key Takeaways:
Climate change has made extreme rainfall events significantly more frequent (2–10 times) and intense (13% increase in rainfall for Midleton's 2023 flood).
Clustering 85% of Irish homes into "blueprint groups" enables more accurate risk assessment by extrapolating known data across similar properties.
1 in 20 properties in Ireland faces barriers to obtaining flood insurance, with inland flooding losses projected to rise 44% by 2050. Counties like Louth and Clare are most impacted.
Tools like AddressLink and Perilfinder from Gamma Risk provide property-specific data (flood risks, rebuild costs, and environmental impacts) to support compliance with regulations like the CSRD.