Keynote and expert panel to examine integrated underwriting, mitigation and capital strategies

HAMILTON, Bermuda, March 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA) today announced two featured sessions at Bermuda Risk Summit 2026 focused on wildfire and conflagration risk, a rapidly intensifying peril that is challenging traditional underwriting models and testing the long-term insurability of exposed markets.

The sessions form part of the Summit's 2026 theme, Building What's Next, and will take place on 11 March 2026, bringing together market leaders, catastrophe modellers, risk engineers and wildfire specialists to examine how the industry can respond collectively to rising loss severity and expanding exposures.

Recent experience highlights the urgency. Severe weather and wildfire events continue to generate multi-billion-dollar insured losses across North America and beyond, with the most severe outcomes increasingly driven by conflagration dynamics, where fire spreads rapidly through the built environment and overwhelms traditional assumptions about wildfire behaviours. As insurers, reinsurers and capital providers reassess exposure, the need for coordinated mitigation, modelling and capital strategies has become central to maintaining insurability.

Featured sessions (11 March 2026):
Keynote | Beyond the Fireline: Conflagration Risk 
12:30pm – 1:00pm
David Torgerson, Chairman & Founder, Wildfire Defense Systems

Panel | From Threat to Strategy: Building an Integrated Market Response for Wildfire Risk
1:00pm – 1:45pm
Moderator: Adam Champion, Price Forbes Re
Panelists: Anne Cope, Chief Engineer, IBHS; Loren Davis, Director of Risk and Catastrophe Analytics, Wildfire Defense Systems; David Torgerson, Executive Chairman & Founder, Wildfire Defense Systems

The sessions will examine how underwriting discipline, capital deployment, mitigation services, data and modelling, and public-private collaboration can be integrated to reduce loss severity and improve market resilience. Particular focus will be placed on how conflagration risk is reshaping portfolio management and driving new expectations around prevention, defensible- space strategies, and community-level resilience.

"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, BDA. "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 modelling, 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. For the BDA, gatherings like the Bermuda Risk Summit are also an opportunity to demonstrate why companies choose Bermuda, and why many continue to expand their presence here as new risks emerge."

"Conflagration events change the loss dynamics significantly," said David Torgerson, Executive Chairman & Founder, Wildfire Defense Systems. "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."

Bermuda Risk Summit convenes global insurers, reinsurers, brokers, asset managers, regulators and institutional investors to examine the forces reshaping risk transfer and capital markets. As wildfire and secondary perils evolve, the Summit provides a platform for market participants to identify practical solutions that strengthen resilience and support sustainable insurance capacity.

Bermuda Risk Summit 2026: Building What's Next is presented by the BDA in partnership with leading industry sponsors:
Headline: EY 
Platinum: BILTIR
Gold: AM Best, Aladdin by Blackrock
Silver: Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers (ABIR), A&G Travel, Ariel Re, AXA XL, A&G Travel, HSBC Asset Management, KPMG, Walkers (Bermuda) Ltd, Web Connectivity Limited (WCL), A Zywave Company
Supporting: ACORD Solutions Group, AON, Clarendon Wallace, Fidelis Insurance Group, Gnosis, KBRA, Rein4ce, SiriusPoint Ltd., Smith Technologies Ltd., Sompo, SS&C Technologies Inc, Teneo, Valani Global, Wilson Elser
Official Airline: BermudAir
Spirits Sponsor: Gosling's Limited
Media Partners: Bermuda RE+ILS, Insurance Business America, Insurance Insider, The Insurer from Reuters

Registration for the 2026 Bermuda Risk Summit is open at a rate of $695. Additional sponsorship and speaking opportunities are available. For more information, visit bda.bm or email bermudarisk@bda.bm.

About the Bermuda Risk Summit
The Bermuda Risk Summit is a premier platform for insurance and reinsurance professionals to engage with industry leaders, strengthen partnerships, and gain insights into emerging risks and solutions. With the strong backing of EY, along with a growing network of sponsors, the summit will deliver valuable discussions that shape the future of the global risk industry.

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SOURCE Bermuda Business Development Agency