Sharing the Risk of Hail: Insurance, Reinsurance and the Variability of Hailstorms in Switzerland, 1880-1932

Abstract

This paper describes part of the early history of crop insurance in Switzerland as a process of adaptation to the hazard of hail. It argues that insurance is a means of socialising hazard through risk sharing and, therefore, that adaptation is an active process influenced by various decisions both within and outside the insurance market. These decisions are as much a part of the story as is the variability of hailstorms in Switzerland. A period of more extreme hailstorms, which challenged insurance provision, occurred between 1920 and 1930 and was linked by reinsurers with climatic change. Examination of this time period will lead to a discussion of insurance in the context of the current debate on global warming, its projected impacts, and possible strategies of adaptation.

Re-thinking the present: The role of a historical focus in climate change adaptation research

“…A certain resurgence in longterm climate adaptation research within historical climatologyreferred to by Mauelshagen and Pfister (2010) as 'macro-history' of the climatehas occurred since around this time. Much of this research has been driven by Pfister and consequently most has focussed on central Europe (Behringer, 1999(Behringer, , 2009Brázdil et al, 2005;Mauelshagen, 2010Mauelshagen, , 2011Pfister, 2002;Pfister and Brázdil, 2006) , although in recent years this has been extended to Mexico (Endfield, 2007(Endfield, , 2008(Endfield, , 2012Endfield and Tejedo, 2006), Anatolia (White, 2011), India (Adamson, 2014) and southern Africa (Hannaford et al, 2014;Hannaford and Nash, 2016;Kelso and Vogel, 2015). Recent work by historical geographers within this tradition has expanded the focus to incorporate the role of knowledge, memory and perceptions in constructing vulnerability and informing adaptive practice and governance (Adamson, 2012(Adamson, , 2015DeSilvey, 2012;Endfield and Naylor, 2015;Endfield and Nash, 2002a, 2002bEndfield and Veale, 2017;Hulme, 2012;Jones et al, 2012;Veale et al, 2014).…”

Historical weather data for climate risk assessment

“…In fact, weather extremes were one of the driving factors behind organized observation networks (particularly at sea) and eventually state weather offices and forecasts, as shown by Moore for the Great Storm of 1703 and the Royal Charter Storm of 1859 . Data on weather extremes were also used when the issue of insurance became an important topic in the early 19th century . Winkler reports on a hail hazard map that was created in 1816 based on reconstructed tracks of hail cells (though the map itself is lost) that was intended for use in the context of insurance claims in Bavaria.…”

“…65 Data on weather extremes were also used when the issue of insurance became an important topic in the early 19th century. 66,67 Winkler 68 reports on a hail hazard map that was created in 1816 based on reconstructed tracks of hail cells (though the map itself is lost) that was intended for use in the context of insurance claims in Bavaria. Only with a sufficiently large database, could first "climatologies"-or "hazards maps" as we would say today-be drawn.…”

Redefining historical climatology in the Anthropocene

“…Reconstruction of past climates was clearly the principal focus of historical climatology until the early 1980s (Carey, 2012), and it remained dominant until the present (Mauelshagen, 2011). By improving our knowledge of the climate history of the last 1000 years, historical climatologists have contributed data confirming the fact of global warming in the 20th and 21st century.…”

“…In Switzerland, as in other parts of Europe (and probably elsewhere around the world) severely affected by the risk of hail (southern France, southern Germany, Austria, Hungary) the density of weather stations contained serious data gaps well into the 1950s. Already Bider (1954) demonstrated that indirect data of hail damage collected by crop insurance companies provided statistically much more reliable information for determining the severity, density, frequency and geographic distribution of hail events in Switzerland (Mauelshagen, 2011). These observations are still used today.…”