One of the pioneers of catastrophe modeling rocked the insurance world by suggesting recently that property insurers have become too dependent on her creation.

Karen Clark stirred up a hornet's nest with her provocative speech last month in New York to the Association of Professional Insurance Women, in which she said insurers have "stopped thinking about risks independently."

Regulators have long been suspicious of models, and consumer advocates say the technology has been abused to unfairly hike rates. Doubts raised by the person who founded the first cat modeling company, Applied Insurance Research–later known as AIR Worldwide Corp., after its acquisition by the Insurance Services Office in 2002–will only add fuel to the fire.

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