September 18, 2018

Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance

Presenters:

John Tedeschi of Guy Carpenter & Co., LLC

John Seo of Fermat Capital Management, LLC

Public Sector Risk and Risk Transfer

A Perspective to De-Risking the Taxpayer
Agenda

• Financial protection gaps expose the:

– Consumer

– State and local municipalities

– Federal government

• Public sector risk transfer case studies

• Observations and suggestions

1
Immediate Impact from Major Disasters

Who is holding the bag?

• Large disasters have immediate consequences and long term impacts

– Traditional components

- Damaged property – consumers, commercial, industrial, automobiles, trucks, 

rail, communications, power, water, sewer, transportation infrastructure etc

- Interruption to lives and businesses

- Life and Health 

– Non-traditional

- Pollution (soil replacement due to lead and cadmium)

- Temporary or permanent displacement impacts unemployment

- Storm-water and vegetation/crops

- Crisis counseling

- Vaccinations

2

• FEMA had an active role in Puerto Rico, but due 

to preparedness challenges, outdated 

infrastructure and large public debt

– Maria’s financial burden fell to tax-payers
Economic Recovery – Longer Term Impact from Major Disasters

• Displaced citizens

– Unemployment, foreclosures, lost property, family disruption

• Economic recovery takes years

– Lost tax revenues for municipalities

– Rebuilding costs

– Bonding costs could be expensive given reduced taxes

– Entire industries could be devastated (Seattle’s Tech Hub)

3
All is Not Lost 

• Private aid organizations

– Red Cross, CDC, Army Corps, religious organizations

• Gaps in disaster coverage – e.g., earthquakes

– ~10% of California consumers purchase earthquake Insurance

– Pacific Northwest even less

• Federal risk transfer mechanisms arose from major multi-billion dollar 

losses to tax-payers

4
Compelling Reasons for Public Entities to Pursue Risk Transfer

...And Not Arrange Financing Post Event

5

Supply and Demand of Funds Following a 

Catastrophe Using Pre-Catastrophe Financing

Supply and Demand of Funds Following a 

Catastrophe Using Post-Catastrophe Financing

Source: Standard and Poors Rating Service

Public Entities can mitigate both financial impact and funding lag associated with major catastrophes by 

engaging in pre-arranged financing; as opposed to relying on fiscal measures 
FEMA NFIP Risk Transfer Program

Success Story

• Circa 2016 NFIP owed Treasury $24B – primarily due to Katrina

• 2016 initiated risk management framework to measure risk, evaluated 

reinsurance and other hedging strategies

• First US Federal government agency to purchase reinsurance

– Cornerstone program secured ~ $1B of protection

– Subsequently purchased ~ $1.4B of reinsurance and $500M of 

insurance securities

• Desire to be fiscally responsible 

6

• Reinsurance paid a total 

recovery of $1B within 9 days 

of notice
NFIP Risk Transfer Program 

Just Beginning

• Initial reinsurance program grew from 

$1B to $1.4B after a total loss

• Catastrophe bond secured for $500M 

with additional capacity readily available

• Program will continue to grow and evolve

7

 4

 5

 6

 7

 8

 9

 10

 4 5 8 10

Billions

Retrn Period

Claims Funding Below $10B

(Aggregate)

NFIF & RF Reinsurance Borrowing

NPR

L2: 2x6

54.315% 

Covered

NPR

L1: 2x4

18.64% Covered

NPR 2018

Legend

FloodSmart Re

FloodSmart

Class A: 13.0%

Class B: 3.5%

$10B

8B

6B

4B

2018 Risk Transfer Program
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Enormous De-risking of Taxpayer

• During financial crisis, taxpayers paid $187B to 

bail out the GSEs.

• Today, vastly improved underwriting and tighter 

regulation have reduced risk along with 

purchasing of Credit Risk Transfer.

• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have transferred 

$79B of risk on $2.8T of mortgages through the 

Credit Risk Transfer program since 2013.

– Utilizing global insurance market for ~ 25%

– Global capital markets for ~75%

8
Freddie Mac - Over $10B of Reinsurance Limit Placed

Example - Freddie Mac’s Credit Risk Transfer Product

9

350 BPS x 50 BPS

$230.0M

STACR M-1

$540.0M

STACR M-2

$173.7M

Class B-2H

$33.3B

Class A-H

$67.0M

ACIS M-1H

$152.9M

ACIS M-2H

$130.0M

STACR B-1

$35.0M

ACIS B-1H

$60.8M

Class M-H 

and B-1H

5% 

400 BPS

310 BPS

100 BPS

50 BPS

0 BPS

Risk 

Retained 

by Freddie

Structural Overview - Recent Deal

• 145k Loans with $35B loan balances acquired 

during 2nd Qtr 2017

• Contemporaneously offered to capital markets 

and reinsurer market

• 12.5 years of coverage with early termination 

option at 5 years

• Reinsurance limits are partially collateralized 

depending on counterparty strength vs debt 

which is 100% cash purchase
Opportunities to further strengthen the housing sector and anticipate 

future systemic risk

10
California Earthquake Authority: Snapshot

11

Source: California Earthquake Authority, Governing Board Meeting, July 19, 2018, Meeting Memoranda, available at: https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/AboutCEA/Leadership/Governing-Board/Meeting-Materials-Archive/2018.

• Established September 1996 by the California 

Legislature in the aftermath of the Northridge 

earthquake.

• Privately funded, publicly managed insurance 

company that sells earthquake insurance 

policies through 19 participating insurance 

companies.

• 1M+ policies in force

• $15B+ claim-paying capacity

• Early adopter of catastrophe (“cat”) bonds: 

$100M of Western Capital Ltd. in Feb. 2001 => 

$2,325M of Ursa Re Ltd. today

• Over half of claim-paying capacity is 

currently backed by private market risktransfer (traditional reinsurance, cat bonds and 

other insurance-linked securities)
California Earthquake Authority: Growth

12

Source: California Earthquake Authority, Governing Board Meeting, July 19, 2018, Meeting Memoranda, available at

https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/About-CEA/Leadership/Governing-Board/Meeting-Materials-Archive/2018.

1 Confirmed with the CEA by John Seo in a phone conversation after the CEA’s July 2018 Governing Board Meeting.

20%1

$30 BN1

$48 BN CEA projects need to expand claim-paying 

capacity by the end of the next decade “based on 

a modest projected growth rate” to:

This projected growth will require an additional 

private market risk-transfer of:

CEA’s projections would bring their penetration 

rate from their current 13 percent to:
Catastrophe risk is fast growing

California Market

Using CEA as a proxy for the broader market1, California 

earthquake risk will grow +$300 BN by end of next decade.

Florida Market

Pielke et al.2 estimated that the probable maximum loss 

(PML) of the insurance industry has approximately doubled 

every decade since the 1920s.

Using the Florida PML of $175 BN previously presented to 

this Committee3, we expect to see a Florida PML increase of 

~$225 BN by the end of the next decade.

13

1 Assuming a 20 percent future penetration and equality between residential and commercial exposure, CEA’s future growth would be multiplied by 10x to arrive at an 

estimate of residential and commercial exposure under a 100 percent insurance penetration.

2

” Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900-2005,” Roger A. Pielke Jr.; Joel Gratz; Christopher W. Landsea; Douglas Collins; Mark A. Saunders; and Rade 

Musulin; Natural Hazards Review, February 2008.

3

“ Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS):’Taller’ than you might think,” slides presented by John Seo to FACI on November 4th, 2015; see 5th bullet point of slide 12.

By the end of the next decade, California and Florida Markets alone 

are expected to produce a $500 BN+ increase in catastrophe risk.

$300 BN cost increase ~$225 BN cost increase

$500 BN combined cost increase
Potential real-estate crisis

• We have a potential real-estate crisis in the making. This time from the 

insurance, not the mortgage side of homeowner finance.

• In a decade’s time, we do not even need the “Big One” to occur to 

precipitate an insurance market crisis. The loss experience of even a 

medium-sized event would be properly extrapolated by insurance industry 

catastrophe models to indicate the magnitude of catastrophe risk building 

in the U.S. property market.

• A replay of the 1990s insurance market crisis (post-Hurricane Andrew, 

post-Northridge Earthquake) is essentially guaranteed “when not an if” 

without a coordinated effort to build insurance-based resilience.

“By January of 1995, companies representing 93 percent of the California homeowners 

insurance market had either restricted or stopped writing homeowners policies altogether, 

sending the California housing market into a tailspin.”

–“History of the California Earthquake Authority (CEA)”1

1Quote retrieved from ww.earthquakeauthority.com/About-CEA/CEA-History on September 10th, 2018.

14
A solution is at hand

• Via catastrophe finance, the insurance industry has the opportunity 

to become a vital participant in the finance of real-estate driven 

growth.

• The $100T+ capital markets can provide the financial capacity 

needed to absorb even the largest of U.S. event risks.

• The insurance industry should work with federal, state and local 

governments to create a coordinated operational framework of 

insurance-centered services to efficiently and effectively process 

and settle claims produced by a major catastrophe. 

15
Recommendations

• Change will require consumers / municipalities / states and federal 

government to

– Quantify the risk

– Measure the impact to their assets

– Assess their ability to recover post event and source of cash

– Educate consumers and government agencies on the consequences of 

going bare

• Require a nationwide inventory of private and governmental assets –

looking out 5-10 years. Growth rate, Inflation and density effect.1

16

1See for example: “World Development Report 2009 : Reshaping Economic Geography,” World Bank, 2009. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/5991.