Enacting catastrophe: preparedness, insurance, budgetary rationalization

Collier, Stephen J.

doi:10.1080/03085140801933280

Cited by 201 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Catastrophe models create distributions of probable losses on a (re)insurance portfolio out of hundreds of thousands of event sets overlaid on a catalog of insured structures, yielding projected damages (Grossi and Kunreuther, 2005). A growing body of work has considered the epistemological significance of catastrophe modeling as a technique departing from actuarial reasoning based on recorded historical event frequencies, instead deploying ''enactment-based'' reasoning premised on stochastic events (Collier, 2008;Randalls, 2009). Running such models has become a pivotal methodology through which the concept of abstract ''financial risk'' is brought into being through distributed performance (MacKenzie, 2006).…”

Section: Catastrophe Models: ''The New Odds-makers''mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This prompted numerous companies to reconsider the peril's business potential and begin writing California earthquake coverage as a new line of business (Guatteri et al, 2005). Insurance companies even developed their own earthquake loss models in the 1930s, an epistemological practice that Collier (2008) identifies as an early instance of the ''enactment-based'' mechanisms for estimating the likelihood and consequence of potentially catastrophic future events.…”

Section: (Re)insurance and The Spatial Fixmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

Johnson

2015

Environ Plan A

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Abstract. This paper investigates the scales and temporalities through which climate change impacts may be rendered into socio-ecological fixes for crises of overaccumulation within the (re)insurance industry. The property insurance and catastrophe reinsurance sectors are notorious for their cyclicity, with prices and returns oscillating dramatically between "soft" and "hard" markets. The problem of overaccummulation in soft market periods is often resolved by the destruction of reinsurers' capital reserves through huge catastrophic losses. This is typically followed by the revision of catastrophe models and reestimation of exposed values, processes which absorb additional (re)insurance capital and provide technoscientific legitimacy for raising rates. Reframing climate change risk in terms of ecologically-sourced devaluation suggests that, rather than posing an immediate existential threat, in the short to medium term the uncertain impacts of global climate change might constitute a recurrent "catastrophic fix" for particular segments of financial capital. This highlights both the productivity of uncertainty about climate change impacts and the limits of presuming that the operations of the private insurance market can produce a built environment more adapted to climate change. Rather, the more likely outcome is splintering protectionism: a patchwork of high risk, high reward areas where insurance is available only to those with the ability to pay rising premiums, leaving the state to manage the retreat and relocation of less remunerative properties and populations.

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Section: Catastrophe Models: ''The New Odds-makers''mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (Re)insurance and The Spatial Fixmentioning

confidence: 99%

Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

Johnson

2015

Environ Plan A

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“…Sk å netrafi ken managers demonstrate that practitioners are not dependent on being aware of risk management knowledge to manage risk effectively. They give proof of an enactment-based knowledge of risk management ( Collier, 2008 ) based on a repeated practice of contracts, responsibility and dialogue. Like prose for language, risk management can be viewed as a label placed by risk management research on specifi c managerial practices, and managers do not need to acknowledge this label.…”

Section: A Jourdainian Approach To Risk Management and Its Limitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The practice of risk management: Silence is not absence

Corvellec

2009

Risk Manag

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In contrast to risk management studies on organisations that overtly deal with risk, this article explores organisational risk management in a context in which risk is more or less absent from managerial vocabulary or organisational communication. It presents a single case study of a Swedish public transportation authority in which managers actually attend to a multitude of risk matters through contracts, a selective view of responsibility and dialogues, but without explicitly referring to them as risks. Two related claims are made on the basis of this case study. One is that the practice of risk management needs to be decoupled from the theories of risk management; another is that risk management practices do not need to be explicit but can be embedded in the managerial tactics (after De Certeau, 1990) that characterise the organisation ' s operational mode. Put concisely, silence does not necessarily mean the absence of risk management. This calls for a redefinition of the boundaries and nature of risk management theory and practice.

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“…Previous literature has focused for instance on how renditions of the future are produced through the specific data mobilised in software (de Goede, 2012), how events are sensually or aesthetically rendered (Adey and Anderson, 2012, Collier, 2008, de Goede and Randalls, 2009 and forms of decision which guide the analytic process (Amoore, 2011(Amoore, , 2014. In this article, I examine how future events are envisaged and governed through what I call the interface performances configured and enacted within the FRS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Events such as fires, health emergencies and crime are now articulated as risks of the future. Known through risk, authorities have developed forms of action such as prevention, protection and preparedness which work to secure emergencies before they occur (Amoore, 2014, Collier, 2008, deGoede, 2013. This turn towards the anticipatory governance of emergencies, in which emergencies are both thought of and attended according to Bain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data, interface, security: Assembling technologies that govern the future

O’Grady

2015

Geoforum

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Enacting catastrophe: preparedness, insurance, budgetary rationalization

Cited by 201 publications

References 22 publications

Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

Catastrophic fixes: cyclical devaluation and accumulation through climate change impacts

The practice of risk management: Silence is not absence

Data, interface, security: Assembling technologies that govern the future

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