The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) announced last week it had formed a partnership with the National Science Foundation to establish a center to research and analyze terrorism and catastrophic cyber risks.
During the FIO’s International Forum of Terrorism Risk (Re)Insurance Pools (IFTRIP) Annual Conference, the FIO said it had formed the partnership to establish a new industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) that will provide research, analysis, and thought leadership to improve the insurance sector’s modeling and underwriting of those risks. The office said an IUCRC is an NSF vehicle that brings university faculty and students together with an industry consortium to do cutting edge research focused on the needs of a sector of the economy.
Officials said the new IUCRC will bring together the insurance sector, academic teams, the federal government and other stakeholders to strengthen U.S. financial system resilience. The groups will help insurers estimate risk with greater certainty, thus improving insurance pricing, coverage and policyholder uptake, as well as contribute to the potential expansion of reinsurance and capital markets to support the risks and inform the treatment of terrorism and catastrophic cyber risks in government programs.
IFTRIP is a 15 nation forum, including the U.S., that supports initiatives for closer international collaboration among sovereign-based terrorism reinsurance pools, officials said. The FIO began serving as chair of the IFTRIP in 2024.