As climate change accelerates in the 21st century, the need to consider its effects is growing, particularly with regard to emerging risks and their impact on the insurance sector on a global scale. As a result, financial and insurance institutions must integrate environmental factors into their risk management frameworks.

The consequences of climate change extend beyond financial aspects related to transition risks, also influencing physical risks, including the quality of life of policyholders. Among these physical risks, air pollution is receiving increasing attention due to its significant impact on public health, especially in the context of personal insurance.

The latest estimates from the European Environment Agency (EEA) indicate that in 2022, 96% of the EU's urban population was exposed to PM₂.₅ concentrations above the World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommended level. Additionally, at least 328,000 deaths in the EU27 in 2021 were attributable to exposure to air pollution.

In response to these challenges, regulatory bodies such as the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) are developing methodological frameworks to quantify the impacts of climate factors on the insurance sector. These frameworks also aim to assess how air pollution affects financial stability, particularly through the lens of increasing claims experience.

In this context, understanding the links between air pollution, mortality rates, and insurance risk modeling is crucial for developing long-term, forward-looking strategies that address the impacts of climate change, including the impacts of air pollution in personal insurance.

This session will be particularly relevant to actuaries, statisticians, data scientists, and risk management professionals working in the insurance and finance sectors. Individuals with a interest in economics, environmental science, and public health may also find value in this session, as it bridges the gap between climate science and risk assessment.

Participants with an interest in Python programming, geostatistical modeling, and prospective climate scenario analysis will also gain insights into methodologies for quantifying the long-term impact of air pollution risk.

Technical Requirements
Please check with your IT department if your firewall and computer settings support web session participation (the programme Zoom will be used for this online training). Please also make sure to join the web session with a stable internet connection.

This lecture will aim to understand the current and future effects of air pollution, particularly on mortality, and its impact on insurance activities. The lecture will also provide participants with tools to reimplement their own model to integrate environmental factors into risk analysis and challenge conventional assumptions.

The lecture will provide the ability to reach several objectives such as:

• Understanding the close link between climate change, air pollution, and current and future insurance risks,
• Reviewing the regulatory texts on environmental issues,
• Proposing a state of the art review of open-source data for the study of air pollution.
• Introducing the theory used for fine-scale temporal and spatial modelling,
• The quantitative translation of an air pollutant concentration measurement into an impact on mortality,
• Raising awareness of the importance of using forward-looking scenarios in insurance risk assessment.

The lecture is built around a mixed approach combining contextual and regulatory presentations, theoretical insights, and intuitive use cases. Learning will be progressive and interactive to hopefully ensure a full understanding of the topic.

The language of the web session will be English.

Baptiste Allaire
A double graduate from EURo Institut d'Actuariat (EURIA) and Ecole Supérieure d’Ingénieurs Léonard de Vinci (ESILV), Baptiste previously worked in brokerage at Bessé on social protection topics before joining actuarial consulting at Optimind. He is now an Actuarial Analyst at Accenture within the Finance & Risk & Compliance practice, with a particular interest in data science and the impact of climate change on insurance.