SIRC: Verisk eyes expansion of hail risk solutions to Japan

November 6 2025 by

With hail becoming a broader risk globally, data analytics provider Verisk is considering expanding its hail risk solutions to Japan, said Rob Newbold, president of Verisk Extreme Event Solutions. 

“We’ve gotten a lot of questions and interest in hail risk in Japan, which has faced severe hail losses recently. We’re talking to the market to determine the need and viability for building a model for hail risk in the country,” he said.  

In APAC, Verisk currently has a hail model in Australia, which Newbold said “it has been the subject of several conversations at SIRC.” 

“Globally, that severe thunderstorm hail peril seems to be generating more interest. We call them frequency perils as they happen more often and individually have less impact, but collectively in the aggregate can be just as damaging as a typhoon,” he said, adding that Verisk also has a roadap of priorities that it is working on for other views of risk.  

“The mix of overall market need and availability of our team to deliver that model is how we’ll make that call.” 

In 2025, Verisk made a couple of investments in APAC.  

Most recently, it has launched its first inland flood models for Malaysia and Indonesia, covering a wide range of areas, including infrastructure, vehicles, marine cargo, and industrial assets. 

“We will continue to invest to bring updated, new models to this market. We believe that APAC plays an important role in the overall global insurance and reinsurance market.”

Rob Newbold, Verisk Extreme Event Solutions

“At least in Malaysia, while there is some background earthquake risk, the only really cat-exposed peril is flood. So as we talk to our clients in the region who are looking for different views of risk, flood was just a logical thing for us to bring to market,” said Newbold.  

He added that with APAC suffering from one of the largest protection gaps in the world, flood is a really good example of a peril without broad insurance penetration globally. 

In 2027, Verisk is also expected to roll out the flood models for Australia and New Zealand, completing its multi-peril offering for the two countries, which already consisted of typhoon, earthquake, bushfire and hail. 

“Australia and New Zealand are the two that we’re working on right now. And after that, we’ll talk with our clients and evaluate what’s next on the roadmap,” he said. 

New models

In APAC this year, the company has also updated its South Korean typhoon model, which has a precipitation-induced flooding component to it.  

“We will continue to invest to bring updated, new models to this market. We believe that APAC plays an important role in the overall global insurance and reinsurance market,” Newbold said.  

“Our view of opportunity in the market is to use these models to help address the protection gap. The risk is insurable. It’s a question of using the tools that are available to understand the climate-exposed cat risk and help to bring coverage to markets where it’s not currently written.” 

However, data remains a big challenge, he added.  

“I think getting availability of both exposure and actual loss data to help to build and validate the models is hard.  

“Compared to the US, for example, where rooftop level, building level data is quite common, it’s harder to get that level of granular data in different APAC regions,” he said.  

“So we have data partners, we make assumptions, we do analytics, we use GIS imagery to help get that data as much as we can. But that’s probably the biggest challenge, is availability of exposure data.” 

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