Spring 2027

Catastrophe Risk and Reinsurance

Examines market and public policy approaches for managing catastrophe risks like hurricanes, wildfires, and cyberattacks, covering catastrophe models and reinsurance markets.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Benjamin Collier

Summary

What you’ll be able to do

  • Adopt a framework for identifying, analyzing, and managing catastrophe risks.

  • Develop expertise applying this framework in the study of current severe risks.

  • Awareness of models that estimate catastrophe risk.

  • Describe the structure of the reinsurance and insurance linked securities markets.

  • Analyze the characteristics of a specific, severe risk and determine the benefits of various risk management arrangements.

  • Recognize the opportunities and challenges of managing catastrophe risks through public-private partnerships.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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letter grades

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Prerequisites

Course map

R M I 300, graduate/professional standing, or declared in Business Exchange Program

    • RMI 300
    • graduate/professional standing
    • declared in Business Exchange Program
    take one
RMI 665

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • RMI 300
    • graduate/professional standing
    • declared in Business Exchange Program

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 540

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Examines market and public policy approaches for managing catastrophe risks. Describes how catastrophes such as hurricanes, wildfires, severe convective storms, terrorist attacks, cyberattacks, environmental disasters (e.g., oil spills), and epidemics create societal challenges by affecting many households and firms concurrently. Covers catastrophe models, which are used to estimate the potential losses from these events by simulating thousands of possible disaster scenarios. Describes the markets for reinsurance and insurance linked securities, how these products work, and the types of risks they cover. Compares public-private partnership models across countries for managing severe risks such as public terrorism reinsurance and cyclone risk pools to glean insights from these varying approaches.

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Societal challenges created by concurrent impacts of natural and man-made catastrophes on households and firms.
  • Catastrophe models that simulate disaster scenarios to estimate potential losses.
  • Reinsurance and insurance linked securities markets, including product mechanics and covered risks.
  • Cross-country comparison of public-private partnership models for managing severe risks.

Skills

  • Identifying, analyzing, and managing catastrophe risks using a structured framework.
  • Analyzing specific severe risks and determining the benefits of various risk management arrangements.
  • Describing the structure of reinsurance and insurance linked securities markets.

Grades

Instructor

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Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

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Catalog observation history

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Selected offering source records
RMI 665 · Spring 2027

Catastrophe Risk and Reinsurance

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:241:026242",
    "course_id": "RMI 665",
    "course_uid": "course_a396371bceac8406aac6a9a6",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "026242",
    "source_subject_id": "241",
    "title": "Catastrophe Risk and Reinsurance",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
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Madgrades

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "618fa9f0f2173922e02cc2abecb7ae89e8eaefe9effd84896b4fa15fac8d985b",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}