David Simmons

David Simmons has over 40 year’s re/insurance experience focusing upon catastrophic hazards. He has a mathematics degree from the University of Bristol and is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute and a Vice-President of the London Insurance Institute.  He was a pioneer in the development of models to understand the frequency and severity of catastrophic hazards and their impacts.  Recent work has looked to apply the risk management, modelling and mitigation techniques developed to support the commercial sector for humanitarian needs.  Examples include the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, African Risk Capacity and the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance company –specially created insurance companies to offer insurance providing immediate post-disaster funding after an event and offering technical assistance to participating countries.  David has acted for all three organizations and many national disaster funds; modelling, designing and arranging reinsurance in the international financial markets and advising on strategic and technical matters including original policy pricing and climate change policy.  Recent interests include developing schemes that integrate social policy and insurance; for example to provide livelihood support to the vulnerable poor and others that aim to protect the environment, build resilience and encourage sustainable development.