What Ancient Climates Teach Us About Modern Risk

In this special minisode of Almost Nowhere, we continue the conversation with Brandon Katz, Executive Vice President at KatRisk, recorded at the 2025 CAS Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas.

Brandon, one of only a handful of insurance professionals with formal training in paleoclimatology, takes us back in time to explore how Earth’s ancient climate history can inform today’s catastrophe modeling and climate risk decisions. We discuss what long-term climate records reveal about variability, extremes, and uncertainty — and why looking millions of years into the past can help actuaries better understand the risks ahead.

A thoughtful add-on to our full episode on climate data and catastrophe modeling, this minisode is perfect for listeners curious about how deep climate science connects to modern insurance practice.