Andy Siffert joined BMS in September 2012 and currently serves a unique role as Vice President and in-house Senior Meteorologist.
As a child, Andy loved the changing seasons, from the brutal cold and snow of Minnesota winter, to the heat-induced thunderstorms during the summer. The weather has always interested him. But it was early on in his education, where he saw weather being used as an excuse for a loss, that led him to where he is today - using his background in meteorology to help companies try to better underwrite and manage risk, while properly responding to catastrophic weather events.
Nearly everyone likes to talk about the weather, but Andy relishes the opportunity to explain simple concepts of his background to a lay audience - whether it be friends, fellow catastrophe modeling analysts, underwriters or reinsurance brokers.
He believes that every property insurance company is a weather company. Provided one of their biggest spends each year can be around paying claims from weather events and buying reinsurance to protect them. Understanding weather is critical to these companies.
With there being an increasing drive within the industry to understand catastrophe models better and not to take catastrophe model numbers ‘out of the box’, developing a tailored view of catastrophe risk for clients by adjusting models for areas of perceived weakness is one area where Andy is really making a difference for BMS and its clients.
