The Fragility of Undersea Cables: A Wake-Up Call for Insurance Executives
The recent massive internet outage in West Africa due to damage to undersea fiber cables is a stark reminder of the fragility of the world’s internet connections. The outage affected eight countries, with Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Benin being the most affected. The damage to the four undersea cables is likely due to seismic activity, and it will take between five weeks and several months to fix them.
Undersea fibers have a rough existence, and there is an undersea fiber cut somewhere in the world every three days. While it’s unusual to have multiple fibers in the same region at the same time, it’s not uncommon for undersea fibers to be cut or damaged. The process of fixing an undersea cable is complicated by the fact that the fiber is located deep in the ocean. Once the location of the cut or damage has been determined, ships use grapnels to snag the cable and pull it to the surface.
The fragility of undersea cables is a significant concern for insurance executives. The undersea fibers carry almost all data that moves from continent to continent, and an outage can be crippling to an entire country or region and last for weeks or months. Insurance executives need to be aware of the potential risks and take steps to mitigate them.
One solution that insurance executives can consider is parametric insurance. Parametric insurance is a type of insurance that pays out when a specific event occurs, such as a natural disaster or a cyber attack. It’s based on real-time data and dynamic risk modeling, which enables insurers to build and operate parametric insurance at scale.
The recent internet outage in West Africa is a wake-up call for insurance executives to consider the potential risks of undersea cables and take steps to mitigate them. With Riskwolf, insurance executives can turn real-time data into insurance and develop parametric insurance for the given case. Riskwolf uses unique real-time data and dynamic risk modeling to enable insurers to build and operate parametric insurance at scale.
In conclusion, the recent internet outage in West Africa highlights the fragility of undersea cables and the potential risks they pose to internet connectivity. Insurance executives need to be aware of these risks and take steps to mitigate them, such as considering parametric insurance. With Riskwolf, insurance executives can turn real-time data into insurance and develop parametric insurance for the given case.
Source: CircleID