Research and Application of Risk-Based Safety Insurance Technology for Petrochemical Plants

Abstract

The current safety insurance assessment for chemical enterprises often refers to financial empirical models, lacking underlying safety failure data for premium determination and safety investment, and overlooking high-risk events with high probability but low consequences. In this study, a risk-based safety insurance grading technique (SIGT) was set up for safety insurance assessment of chemical enterprises. First, a safety reliability database and event dataset were introduced to establish a rapid screening technique for plant-wide probable maximum loss (PML) scenarios, and a technique for accident loss value analysis. This addresses the drawback of lacking a safety data foundation for premium and investment decisions. Second, the impact of safety control was incorporated on the analysis of potential accident consequences. An innovative premium rating method based on residual risk was developed, effectively addressing the insurance decision-making challenge posed by high-risk events with high probability but low consequences. Finally, a case study in China was conducted to verify the feasibility of SIGT. The results demonstrated that, based on the current safety reliability level, five major PML scenarios were quickly identified for the four key plants, and the overall safety risk index of the enterprise was 25 (D5), indicating the effect of existing safety control on the initial risk of 37 (D6), but there is still a relatively high risk overall. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a list of key risk events for the enterprise’s safety insurance, and provide more investment on personnel and equipment under PML scenarios.