AIR Expands Life, Accident/Health, Disability Model

AIR Worldwide Corporation announced the international expansion of its catastrophe modeling services for life, accident and health, and disability insurers. The service was introduced in 2003 as part of the company’s U.S. earthquake and terrorism risk analysis model.

Since then it has been expanded and is now available for Taiwan. It can also be applied, upon request, to more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia, and North and South America in which AIR models earthquake risk.

“AIR is expanding the geographic scope of its life modeling capabilities in response to increased demand by insurers internationally,” stated Sr. VP Uday Virkud. “As December’s tragic earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean demonstrated, natural disasters have the potential to cause very large loss of life. Earthquakes are particularly lethal, as witnessed by the 1999 Taiwan earthquake that caused 3,400 deaths, the 1995 Kobe earthquake that caused more than 6,000 deaths, and the 1976 earthquake in China that killed more than 250,000 people.”

AIR’s bulletin noted that it had “recently completed a catastrophe risk analysis for the Taiwan life portfolio of a major international insurer. AIR’s innovative analysis, which covered approximately 20 percent of the population of Taiwan, enables the client to effectively manage exposure concentrations in high-risk areas and to make more informed decisions regarding reinsurance purchasing and risk retention.

“A number of leading life insurers have incorporated catastrophe risk analysis into their overall risk management approach. Practices such as determining where insured lives are located with respect to catastrophe risk, exploring worst-case scenarios, and reviewing portfolio loss potential probabilistically are enabling life insurers to better understand and manage their catastrophe risk.”