AIR Releases New Web Application for Underwriters

October 16, 2001

AIR, the Boston-based catastrophe modeling company, has announced the availability of AIRProfiler™, a web-based application that provides a quick and cost-effective means to assess the natural catastrophe hazard facing individual property locations. AIRProfiler™, will make available AIR’s extensive hazard and locational databases to underwriters of property risk throughout the country.

AIRProfiler delivers clearly stated risk information based on the geocode of a property. After tracking the location to AIR’s geophysical hazard database, the property is given both an absolute risk score and relative risk scores based on three measures: average annual loss (AAL), the 100-year return period loss, and the 250-year loss.

One of AIRProfiler’s key advantages is the high-resolution grid on which the risk and relative risk scores are calculated. Unlike the ZIP code level calculations normally used by other products, AIRProfiler calculates risk scores for much smaller areas, therefore capturing highly localized variations in hazard potential within each ZIP code.

According to Vivek Basrur, senior vice president of AIR, time frames for issuing premium quotes can be tight and the ability to differentiate quickly between the relative risk of various properties is crucial. Basrur noted that what AIR has accomplished with AIRProfiler is to package the vast amount of information contained in its hazard and industry exposure databases in an easy-to-use application that delivers meaningful results to the underwriter in an inexpensive and efficient manner.

Along with offering risk scoring, underwriters will receive valuable information about the hazard-related geological and geographical characteristics of the region within which the property is located.

In the case of the earthquake hazard, for example, these include the presence of earthquake-induced landslide zones as defined by the Division of Mines and Geology (DMG), susceptibility to soil liquefaction, distance to the nearest fault, and information on nearby historical earthquakes.

For hurricane-exposed risks, users are provided with information on storm surge potential, land use/land cover, distance from the coast, and the track and intensity of historical hurricanes that have impacted the location.

AIRProfiler is available through the Internet at www.AIRProfiler.com. It is also available for intranet installation in conjunction with AIR’s insurance company modeling system, CLASIC/2™.

Topics Catastrophe Underwriting Property

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