Lloyd's Science of Risk Prize 2011 is now closed for entries. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners. Details of the winning entries can be found on these pages.
Lloyd’s has a 300-year history of managing risks and we recognise the essential value of research and new ideas. That is why we are looking for the very best research from academics in the UK, incentivised by a range of prizes for winning entrants.
Lloyd's is the world's specialist insurace market where cover is provided for a wide range of risks.
We help individuals and companies manage risks ranging from property damage to third-party liability. To help us better understand these risks, it's important for us to keep track of academic research in a variety of fields.
For this reason, we co-sponsor the Lighthill Risk Network, a key partner in running a knowledge network funded by the Technology Strategy Board and which encourages the flow of information between academia and the insurance industry.
We believe that our industry has some technical challenges that should be very interesting to academics around the world. These include better understanding the impact and management of climate change, the use of cutting-edge mathematics in modelling, and the understanding of the benefits and risks of nanotechnology.
The Science of Risk Prize Information Booklet 2011 can be found here.
For further information and queries please contact the Science of Risk team.
In 2011, we called for published research on the following themes:
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Natural hazards (excluding climate change)
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Climate change
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Technological risks/ Biological risks
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Behavioural risks
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Insurance operations and markets (including financial mathematics)
Natural Hazards: What risks are faced by developing world countries and how could insurers help? Do climate models help us assess the level of climate risk in the coming year? What is the latest science for our critical perils (wind, flood, earthquake, and others)? What data should we be collecting and what could we do with it if we had it? Does the weather in one part of the world affect the likelihood of a catastrophe in another?
Climate change: How might climate change impact critical perils for insurers (tropical cyclones, flooding, windstorms in Europe, wildfires, hail, lightning strikes, subsidence and heave for example)? How might political risk change around the globe due to climate change and other trends (water shortage or food security for instance)? After a large event, for example a flood, what materials should we use to rebuild sustainably? What does a “sustainable insurer” look like? How might the price of carbon change in the coming years?
Technology/Biology: How might new safety technologies affect accident rates? How could better characterised new materials reduce risks? How can we assess the long-term health impacts of new technologies? Is the internet introducing new systemic risk into our global economy? How can we stimulate innovation whilst protecting health and the environment? How is the latest medical research changing the risk of epidemics? How soon might third generation biofuels be available? What did we think we knew last year, that we now realise we don’t? How is urbanisation affecting the evolution rate of new diseases? Are intensive farming practices a hot bed for new pandemics?
Behavioural: How might behavioural biases affect the way insurers manage risks? What processes should we put in place to help avoid these biases? Should insurers run “failure training” in the same way airline pilots have to undergo such tests: what could we learn from this? How can we stimulate cross stakeholder scenario analysis?
Insurance operations and markets (including financial mathematics): What are the drivers of claims inflation and how might they change in future? What innovative methods can be used to detect fraud? What advances in mathematics or statistics can help with modelling of insurance risk (reducing run times, improving accuracy)? How can parameter uncertainty in models be estimated and illustrated to management? What innovative graphical methods have been developed to help visualise large data sets? What are the key drivers of the insurance cycle? What breakthroughs in technology could lead to better experience for insurance customers?
