Wildfire and conflagration dynamics are raising questions about the insurability of exposed markets, prompting industry leaders to examine underwriting, modeling, and capital responses during two sessions at the Bermuda Risk Summit 2026.
The sessions will take place March 11 during the summit, which runs from March 9–11 in Bermuda and is organized by the Bermuda Business Development Agency. The discussions will bring together catastrophe modelers, wildfire specialists, risk engineers, and insurance market participants to examine how the sector responds to rising wildfire losses and the spread of fire through developed areas.
Recent severe weather and wildfire events have generated multi-billion-dollar insured losses across North America and other regions. Industry participants note that the most severe outcomes increasingly involve conflagration dynamics, where fires spread through built environments and challenge assumptions embedded in traditional wildfire underwriting and catastrophe models.
Organizers say the discussions will consider underwriting discipline, capital allocation, mitigation services, modeling approaches, and the role of coordination between the private sector and public authorities in addressing wildfire exposure. The sessions will also examine how conflagration risk affects portfolio management and prevention measures such as defensible-space planning and community resilience strategies.
The March 11 program includes a keynote session titled Beyond the Fireline: Conflagration Risk, scheduled from 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. The presentation will be delivered by David Torgerson of Wildfire Defense Systems.
A panel discussion titled From Threat to Strategy: Building an Integrated Market Response for Wildfire Risk will follow from 1:00 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. The session will be moderated by Adam Champion of Price Forbes Re.
Panelists include Anne Cope of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, Loren Davis, director of risk and catastrophe analytics at Wildfire Defense Systems, and Torgerson.
“Wildfire risk is no longer confined to the wildland interface. It is increasingly a capital and insurability issue,” said David Parker, head of business development at the Bermuda Business Development Agency. “Bermuda plays a central role in connecting global risk with the capital and structures needed to absorb it. These sessions bring together the specialists working across modeling, mitigation and underwriting to examine what an integrated market response should look like, and how the industry can move from reacting to losses toward reducing them.”
Torgerson said conflagration events alter wildfire loss dynamics.
“Conflagration events change the loss dynamics significantly,” he said. “Addressing the risk requires coordination across the value chain - from prevention and engineering to analytics, underwriting and capital strategy. Bringing these perspectives together is essential to improving near-term outcomes.”
The wildfire discussions form part of a wider agenda at the Bermuda Risk Summit examining developments affecting risk transfer and capital markets.
According to summit organizers, the program includes sessions on alternative capital, artificial intelligence, private credit, catastrophe resilience, and other emerging exposures influencing reinsurance markets. The event will bring together insurers, reinsurers, brokers, asset managers, regulators, and institutional investors.
David Burt is scheduled to open the conference, followed by a discussion with Jason Hayward on economic priorities and international collaboration, according to information released by the BDA.
The agenda also includes a session examining the 20-year anniversary of the so-called “Class of 2005,” a group of reinsurance companies formed following Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Industry coverage released by the BDA notes that those companies contributed new capital and structures that influenced Bermuda’s role in catastrophe risk capacity.
Economic outlook will also feature in the program. Gregory Daco, of EY-Parthenon, is scheduled to deliver a keynote presentation titled Great Rebalance: The Next Phase of Global Growth, examining monetary and fiscal conditions, labor market trends, and the influence of artificial intelligence on productivity.
