Winterstorm

North America winterstorms have the potential to cause significant insured losses from a combination of wind, snow, ice, and freeze (cold temperatures) at both the occurrence (such as the February 2021 severe winter weather event that caused $15 billion in insured losses) and aggregate levels.

We designed the Moody’s RMS™ winterstorm modeling framework to help you develop effective and profitable strategies for managing the frequency and severity impacts of winterstorm risk across the United States and Canada.

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What we do

Our models can help you quantify potential losses and effectively manage, underwrite, and price multi-peril, correlated risk across the United States and Canada.

Account for the full loss spectrum

View all potential sources of loss across a range of cat and non-cat events with the freedom to isolate or combine them, allowing for deeper insights into attritional and tail risk.

Enhance data-driven underwriting decisions

Select and differentiate risks with our model's high level of granularity and adjustable exposure options, available across multiple lines of business such as residential, commercial, and industrial.

Access unified modeling experience

Manage your portfolio with confidence, armed with a comprehensive view of winterstorm risk that can be used on its own or in conjunction with our other peril models to create a comprehensive modeling solution for all natural perils in the United States and Canada.

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Interested in learning more about our offerings? Our solutions specialists are ready to help.

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How we help

01 Specialized vulnerability curves
02 Catastrophic and non-catastrophic event sets
03 Flexible sub-peril modeling

01 Specialized vulnerability curves

Specialized vulnerability curves

Moody’s RMS US and Canada Winterstorm Model's component-based vulnerability module has over 500 unique vulnerability functions, with additional sub-peril-specific secondary modifiers.

We designed these vulnerability curves to account for all key winterstorm damage modes — such as roof collapse under snow, ice damming, wind damage, icing causing treefall, burst pipes, and basement flooding — while also considering regional variation in damageability due to differing local design codes and construction practices.

02 Catastrophic and non-catastrophic event sets

Catastrophic and non-catastrophic event sets

The model uses a stochastic event set that represents 30,000 years of winterstorm activity produced using a combination of numerical and statistical modeling techniques.

The model includes functionality to distinguish between catastrophic and non-catastrophic events in the larger stochastic event set; this gives users the flexibility to activate or deactivate these distinct event sets, allowing for loss isolation or aggregation.

03 Flexible sub-peril modeling

Flexible sub-peril modeling

Our model allows you to examine losses from snow, ice (or freezing rain), freeze, and extratropical winds separately or together in any desired combination.

Moody’s built in explicit considerations to avoid double- or triple-counting when combining damages from multiple sub-perils.

We have also implemented similar measures to avoid overlap between this model and the Moody’s RMS US and Canada Severe Convective Storm Model. This is possible because although extra-tropical weather systems can give rise to both winterstorm and severe convective storm perils, the meteorological conditions necessary for each type of storm are sufficiently distinct to allow for their separation. 

Where we help

Regional and country winterstorm models

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Spotlight on catastrophe risk

Read our latest insights on catastrophes around the world.

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May 06, 2022

Moody's

Moody’s RMS United States and Canada Winterstorm Modeling: delivering the latest view of risk and new flexibility

The severe winter weather event in the United States in February 2021 was a surprise that caused nearly $15 billion in losses and killed 220 people. Reflect on the lessons this storm taught us for our 2022 update to Moody’s RMS US and Canada Winterstorm Models.

blog

Jan 16, 2023

Moody's

Three questions on the December 2022 North America cold air outbreak

Discuss lingering questions about the cold air outbreak that affected 2.9 million Americans in December 2022.

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