Wow, 2016 is now half over. It has been an eventful half year, including private flood legislation coming closer to implementation and historic wildfires in Alberta and California.

It has been a good six months for The Risks of Hazard, too. We have set new readership records three times already this year. Here are the Top 5 posts of 2016, so far:

5. On Elephants and Blind Underwriting – This blog, if nothing else, proved the rule that silly titles can lead to interest. It’s one of my favorite titles in the blog.

4. Are you a Goldfish Underwriter? – Goldfish underwriting describes the underwriters who bind policies based on their capacity and accumulation instead of assessing each risk closely. I don’t know if the big readership numbers are because it’s a problem that resonated with the audience, or because people wanted to know what I might be talking about.

3. News Flash: Flood Losses Occur Beyond Flood Zones – This was a surprise to me: who knew that stating the blindingly obvious can be a way to boost readership.

2. Who Said Analytics are so Smart – This post was the result of a below-the-line exchange with agent from Gen Re. I remain grateful to him for exposing this rich vein of material.

1. Cat Modeler’s Guide to the Protection Gap – The best way to big readership numbers is star power. This blog took off because it was about RMS, and it found its way into their impressive social network.

Here is looking forward to a great second half of 2016. Hopefully no big cat events, but plenty of innovation in cat underwriting.