The chief executive of a major insurer, in a talk on enterprise risk management, warned an industry conference yesterday that carriers in this century face a possible $100 billion catastrophe loss.
Steve Lilienthal, chairman and CEO of CNA, speaking on a panel in Chicago at the International Insurance Society's annual seminar, showed a slide with the last 17 years of insured catastrophe losses, including last year's $57.7 billion total.
A final line on his bar chart was for $100 billion, and the year was projected as "20??"
Mr. Lilienthal warned his audience that the insurance business is a win small/lose big proposition, warning that a decade of profits can be wiped out in an afternoon. "A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning," advised a jocular slide he projected.
He also displayed a line graph showing that between 1970 and 2005, the number of global, natural catastrophic events has soared from under 50 to 150, while man-made disasters have spiked from just over 50 to 250.
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