The WFCP was established in San Francisco in 2006 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the major earthquake which struck the city. This inaugural meeting was initiated by representatives of the New Zealand Earthquake Commission and the Vidlagatrygging Islands. There were participants from California, Hawaii, France, Norway and Spain, all of whom worked for state-owned insurance companies or partially state-owned insurance companies.
It was determined at this meeting that there was great demand among this group of people for an opportunity to exchange information and experiences relating to the handling of natural disasters.
The range of topics was continuously expanded over the years, so that floods, storms and, since 2009, terrorism insurance have become constant topics of discussion in addition to earthquakes. The number of participants has also grown in recent years. Membership is open to all state-owned or partially state-owned organisations which are entrusted with insuring against natural disasters, acts of terrorism or other disasters. The World Bank and the European Insurance Committee (CEA) are also invited guests at the annual meetings.
It really is an enriching experience to learn from the various participants how their programmes work, what experiences they have gained from incidents and where the difficulties and successes lie when dealing with these. Exchanging experiences always enables you to learn new things, so that your own programmes can be optimised or expanded.
So far, the forums have been held in San Francisco (2006), Madrid (2007), Iceland (2008), Taipei (2009) and Bucharest (2010). At the last forum, held in Jamaica in October 2011, minor changes were made to the way the forum is organised. It was decided that the country which is responsible for conducting the next forum will also assume the presidency for a year.
After Switzerland had been given the great honour and pleasure of hosting this forum in 2012, the members elected Peter W. Schneider, CEO Intercantonal Reinsurance IRV, as the President for 2011/2012. He will be supported by the previous President (2011: Milo Pearson, Jamaica) and the future President (2013: Knut Nordskog, Norway). All three of them form the Committee.
IRV-Intercantonal Reinsurance is looking forward to welcoming all members of the WFCP to Switzerland from 24 to 27 September 2012.
