Coping with Black Swans

The insurance and reinsurance industries are in business to take bets on risks that can be identified, assessed, prioritized and planned for financially. Disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, massive asbestos-like litigation and even terrorist attacks fit the bill. But what about so-called Black Swan events?

A Black Swan is a disaster or series of cascading disasters that no one saw coming—hence there was no way to identify, assess, prioritize and plan for the impact. The term apocryphally derives from the settlement of Australia by the British, who had seen white swans before but never a black one.

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