View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2009/02/10/97784.htm
Catastrophe risk and cat modeling firm, Karen Clark & Co., launched a new software product that helps insurance companies collect and analyze data from property inspections.
The application, RiskRover, is designed to help insurers obtain better information about the properties they insure, while increasing the efficiency of inspectors and underwriters. The software is available for field inspectors and loss control specialists and intended to be installed on a “smartphone” or similar handheld device for use in the field. With RiskRover, an inspector can capture detailed property attributes using customizable data fields, photos and videos with tags, and handwritten notes and sketches. The application can also record the address and coordinates of the property using the device’s GPS system.
The information collected during the inspection is instantly transmitted to an online database for immediate accessibility. The included RiskInsight interface allows underwriters and other staff to easily query and view the data and photos captured by RiskRover.
“Access to detailed information about insured properties is the basis for estimating loss potential,” said Glen Daraskevich, senior vice president, Karen Clark & Co. “RiskRover dramatically improves the quality and ease of access to data for underwriting and risk analysis, allowing companies to make quicker and more informed decisions about their risk.”
Daraskevich says RiskRover will give companies a competitive advantage by dramatically decreasing the time it takes underwriters to receive the information they need to make underwriting decisions and to give binding quotes back to agents and brokers. By capturing inspection data electronically, RiskRover relieves inspectors of the additional step of transcribing observations into a report. The application also maintains a record of data input and notifies inspectors of any missing data while they are still onsite. The RiskInsight interface facilitates easy data extraction into catastrophe models, pricing systems, and other risk analyses.
RiskRover is fully customizable for seamless integration into a carrier’s existing data collection system, the announcement said. Companies can define the fields of information to be collected onsite, and the information is immediately available to underwriters in a format and reporting mechanism of their selection. The application does not require additional software purchases, and RiskRover can be deployed on a wide variety of mobile devices that use the Windows mobile operating system.
Source: Karen Clark & Co.,
www.karenclarkandco.com