William Riker, the recently retired president and chief underwriting officer of Bermuda-based RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., was given a Special Award at the 2008 National Hurricane Conference, RenRe announced today.
The Special Award presented at the meeting in Orlando, Fla., honored Mr. Riker for outstanding contributions to the advancement of hurricane research and modeling.
The Awards Committee noted Mr. Riker's visionary leadership to champion and fund some of today's most important hurricane and loss mitigation research initiatives, including the RenaissanceRe Wall of Wind facility at Florida International University.
The Wall of Wind is a structure stacked with engines that drive huge propellers subjecting full-scale buildings to Category 4 strength winds in a reliable, repeatable testing environment.
Mr. Riker has also been instrumental in supporting the creation of a new attraction at Epcot in the Walt Disney World Resort which is designed to recreate what it feels like to be in a severe weather event and teach patrons about the associated risks and ways to protect the home in an interactive and entertaining setting.
In addition, RenRe said, Mr. Riker spearheaded the Hurricane Risk Mitigation Leadership Forum in February, a meeting that brought together experts, scientists and policymakers to advance hurricane mitigation efforts and awareness.
Neill Currie, president and chief executive of RenaissanceRe, said in a statement that RenaissanceRe has researched and modeled natural catastrophe risks for 15 years to underwrite reinsurance and insurance coverages in coastal areas.
Mr. Riker, he said, led the effort to apply RenRe's business expertise toward advancing hurricane mitigation, and the ultimate result of Mr. Riker's "significant endeavors will be safer homes and families."
Mr. Riker joined RenaissanceRe in its founding year, 1993, and retired in December 2007. Prior to joining RenaissanceRe, Mr. Riker was vice president of Applied Insurance Research, a Boston-based catastrophe modeling firm, where he was responsible for marketing and educating clients about AIR's CATMAP product.
In an interview with National Underwriter in 2005, a few months after Hurricane Katrina, which had a privately insured loss of $41.1 billion, Mr. Riker explained that event was not "the big one."
He said RenRe's view is that 1-in-100-year events are "in the three-digit billions," and that a $50 billion event is a 10-to-15-year event when assessed on a worldwide basis.
Mr. Riker was elected Wednesday to the board of Narragansett Bay Insurance Company in Pawtucket, R.I.
Nick Steffey, chairman and chief executive officer of Narragansett, said, "We look forward to drawing on [Mr. Riker's] considerable knowledge in catastrophe underwriting and modeling as well as portfolio management."
Mr. Riker, who is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter and holds a B.S.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University, is also a board member of the International Hurricane Research Center and Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH).
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