On March 12, 2026, the SCOR Foundation held a hybrid workshop in Zurich in association with the GenMR project, which it funds. The aim of this project is to develop the Generic Multi-Risk (GenMR) platform to model dynamic processes that generate compound events.

The speakers were Arnaud Mignan (Mignan Risk Analytics GmbH), who leads the project, and SCOR’s Marie-Laure Fandeur (Head of Pricing & Modeling Reinsurance, Paris and MEA) and Symeon Koumoutsaris (Global Head of Cat Research & Development).

The most damaging catastrophes are rarely the result of a single event. They emerge when multiple risks interact, when one disaster triggers another, and impacts cascade across systems. A storm becomes more than a storm when it causes a blackout, shuts down hospitals, disrupts supply chains, and fuels widespread panic. In these moments, a natural hazard evolves into a broader societal crisis. These interconnected phenomena are known as compound catastrophes: complex, dynamic events driven by cascading failures, feedback loops, and the amplification of vulnerabilities over time.

The challenge with compound catastrophes lies in their rarity and complexity. They depend on specific combinations of hazards, exposures, and timing, combinations that are seldom captured in historical records. As a result, relying solely on past data leaves us largely unprepared for future risks. The space of possibilities is vast, and only a small fraction has ever been observed.

To address this gap, new developments of the Generic Multi-Risk platform (GenMR), funded by the SCOR Foundation for Science, offer a new approach: GenMR incorporates a virtual environment designed to simulate how compound catastrophes emerge and evolve. Within a digital representation of a city (complete with topography, infrastructure, socio-economic systems, and environmental conditions), multiple hazards and stressors are modelled simultaneously. This integrated approach allows for the exploration of interactions that traditional, siloed models cannot capture.

By simulating millions of possible scenarios, GenMR reveals how seemingly independent events can combine and escalate into severe crises. The outcomes are translated into year loss tables, enabling the identification of high-impact scenarios and the mechanisms behind them: which triggers initiated the cascade, where vulnerabilities intensified the damage, and how feedback loops drove escalation.

More than a predictive tool, GenMR is a laboratory for understanding compounding risk. It allows us to move beyond isolated hazard assessment and toward a systemic view of interconnected threats. Because the most severe catastrophes arise from systems failing together, improving resilience requires us to think, and model, in systems as well.

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Part 1

Part 2