Swiss Re puts pioneering data and analytics platform at the service of global health and joins The Trinity Challenge

  • Swiss Re becomes a member of The Trinity Challenge – a coalition of universities, foundations and leading technology and health companies with the common aim of better protecting the world against health emergencies by harnessing the power of data and analytics
  • Swiss Re’s Risk Resilience Center, developed with Palantir Technologies, is a platform that can now enable The Trinity Challenge participants to analyse previously fragmented data
  • Swiss Re’s platform is already used by companies to help guide COVID-19 related workplace policies, mental health management or capital requirements

Swiss Re is joining The Trinity Challenge, a global coalition that aims to better predict and prevent outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics by harnessing the power of data and analytics. Swiss Re has integrated COVID-19 related health, economic and social data in one unique platform: the Risk Resilience Center. As a contribution in kind, the pioneering Swiss Re platform is being opened to participants of The Trinity Challenge. It enables advanced analyses of COVID-19 metrics and their connection with the status of countries’ medical systems, business or travel activity – in short, with the economy at large.

By becoming a member of The Trinity Challenge, Swiss Re is joining leaders across the academic, non-profit and private sectors including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, GlaxoSmithKline, McKinsey & Company, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London. The Trinity Challenge aims to develop ideas and tools for tackling the three stages of infectious disease emergencies – identification, response and recovery.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Swiss Re, in collaboration with leading big data analytics company Palantir Technologies, has been integrating relevant data sources related to COVID-19’s health, economic and social dimensions (such as aggregate mobility and behavioural patterns) on one platform: the Risk Resilience Center. The platform provides access to the world’s richest data on COVID-19, integrating publicly available global data from 100+ sources. It is global in coverage, granular in depth, and continuously enriched. Swiss Re will make the data assets and analytics tools available to The Trinity Challenge participants based on their specific research topics.

Ian Haycock, Chief Data Officer at Swiss Re, said: “As one of the world’s leading tech- and data-enabled reinsurers we have been using data to make the world more resilient for more than 150 years. We are proud to build on this legacy by opening our pioneering Risk Resilience Center for the benefit of global health. It typically takes weeks to have data integrated and curated – our platform updates, checks and transforms datasets automatically and multiple times per hour, with a continuous flow of incoming data, allowing for cross-country comparisons and drilldowns on states and regions. Equipped with these cutting-edge capabilities, The Trinity Challenge participants can analyse the spread of a pandemic, the economic impact of lockdowns or the success of behavioural changes like wearing a mask in limiting further infection.“

Dame Sally Davies, Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, former Chief Medical Officer of England and Convenor of The Trinity Challenge, said: “Having access to this wealth of data and analytics creates a tremendous opportunity for academics, researchers and analysts. It provides the basis for new modelling, ground-breaking analyses and actionable solutions. We invite researchers and analysts from the public and private sector to apply to join the Challenge, work with Swiss Re and Palantir, and make their insights available as global public goods.“

A pioneering data platform to help the world be better prepared for health crises

Swiss Re’s Risk Resilience Center has already been put into practice successfully. For example, the platform enables the analysis of COVID-19 infections, hospital stays, and mortalities for specific countries. Large companies already apply these insights to adjust their workplace policies. By spotting portfolio accumulations, insurers can deploy policyholder support in areas such as mental health management. Findings are also being used by insurers to confirm whether they are sufficiently capitalised in face of the COVID-19 crisis and to adjust this as needed.

The platform lets The Trinity Challenge participants evaluate how stressed a country’s medical system is at a given point in time and enables predictions by combining real-time hospital and ICU bed occupancy rates with model projections. This helps allow for better planning such as the assessment of needed medical resources and their allocation. Swiss Re is currently also reaching out to governments and multilateral development banks with the aim of providing them with access to the platform pro bono.

Organisations and individuals from the areas of data science, public health, economics, epidemiology, and industry who would like to learn more or are interested in participating in The Trinity Challenge can visit https://thetrinitychallenge.org. Formal applications opened on 12 October and successful submissions will compete for a prize of GBP 10 million to be awarded in May 2021.

Swiss Re

The Swiss Re Group is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, working to make the world more resilient. It anticipates and manages risk – from natural catastrophes to climate change, from ageing populations to cyber crime. The aim of the Swiss Re Group is to enable society to thrive and progress, creating new opportunities and solutions for its clients. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, where it was founded in 1863, the Swiss Re Group operates through a network of around 80 offices globally. It is organised into three Business Units, each with a distinct strategy and set of objectives contributing to the Group’s overall mission.

Cautionary note on forward-looking statements

Certain statements and illustrations contained herein are forward-looking. These statements (including as to plans, objectives, targets, and trends) and illustrations provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to a historical fact or current fact.

Forward-looking statements typically are identified by words or phrases such as “anticipate”, “assume”, “believe”, “continue”, “estimate”, “expect”, “foresee”, “intend”, “may increase”, “may fluctuate” and similar expressions, or by future or conditional verbs such as “will”, “should”, “would” and “could”. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the Group’s actual results of operations, financial condition, solvency ratios, capital or liquidity positions or prospects to be materially different from any future results of operations, financial condition, solvency ratios, capital or liquidity positions or prospects expressed or implied by such statements or cause Swiss Re to not achieve its published targets. Such factors include, among others:

  • the frequency, severity and development of insured claim events, particularly natural catastrophes, man-made disasters, pandemics, acts of terrorism or acts of war;
  • mortality, morbidity and longevity experience;
  • the cyclicality of the reinsurance sector;
  • central bank intervention in the financial markets, trade wars or other protectionist measures relating to international trade arrangements, adverse geopolitical events, domestic political upheavals or other developments that adversely impact global economic conditions;
  • increased volatility of, and/or disruption in, global capital and credit markets;
  • the Group’s ability to maintain sufficient liquidity and access to capital markets, including sufficient liquidity to cover potential recapture of reinsurance agreements, early calls of debt or debt-like arrangements and collateral calls due to actual or perceived deterioration of the Group’s financial strength or otherwise;
  • the Group’s inability to realize amounts on sales of securities on the Group’s balance sheet equivalent to their values recorded for accounting purposes;
  • the Group’s inability to generate sufficient investment income from its investment portfolio, including as a result of fluctuations in the equity and fixed income markets, the composition of the investment portfolio or otherwise;
  • changes in legislation and regulation, or the interpretations thereof by regulators and courts, affecting the Group or its ceding companies, including as a result of comprehensive reform or shifts away from multilateral approaches to regulation of global operations;
  • the lowering or loss of one of the financial strength or other ratings of one or more companies in the Group, and developments adversely affecting its ability to achieve improved ratings;
  • uncertainties in estimating reserves, including differences between actual claims experience and underwriting and reserving assumptions;
  • policy renewal and lapse rates;
  • uncertainties in estimating future claims for purposes of financial reporting, particularly with respect to large natural catastrophes and certain large man-made losses, as significant uncertainties may be involved in estimating losses from such events and preliminary estimates may be subject to change as new information becomes available;
  • legal actions or regulatory investigations or actions, including in respect of industry requirements or business conduct rules of general applicability;
  • the outcome of tax audits, the ability to realize tax loss carryforwards and the ability to realize deferred tax assets (including by reason of the mix of earnings in a jurisdiction or deemed change of control), which could negatively impact future earnings, and the overall impact of changes in tax regimes on the Group’s business model;
  • changes in accounting estimates or assumptions that affect reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues or expenses, including contingent assets and liabilities;
  • changes in accounting standards, practices or policies;
  • strengthening or weakening of foreign currencies;
  • reforms of, or other potential changes to, benchmark reference rates;  
  • failure of the Group’s hedging arrangements to be effective;
  • significant investments, acquisitions or dispositions, and any delays, unforeseen liabilities or other costs, lower-than-expected benefits, impairments, ratings action or other issues experienced in connection with any such transactions;
  • extraordinary events affecting the Group’s clients and other counterparties, such as bankruptcies, liquidations and other credit-related events;
  • changing levels of competition;
  • the effects of business disruption due to terrorist attacks, cyberattacks, natural catastrophes, public health emergencies, hostilities or other events;
  • limitations on the ability of the Group’s subsidiaries to pay dividends or make other distributions; and
  • operational factors, including the efficacy of risk management and other internal procedures in anticipating and managing the foregoing risks.

These factors are not exhaustive. The Group operates in a continually changing environment and new risks emerge continually. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Swiss Re undertakes no obligation to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This communication is not intended to be a recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities and does not constitute an offer for the sale of, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, securities in any jurisdiction, including the United States. Any such offer will only be made by means of a prospectus or offering memorandum, and in compliance with applicable securities laws.

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