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South Carolina Approves Updated RMS North Atlantic Hurricane Models

Versions of global catastrophe risk management firm RMS’ North Atlantic Hurricane Models have been approved by South Carolina’s Department of Insurance for the purpose of residential rate filings. Approval for the hurricane model versions 15.0 and 15.0.1 was provided on July 15, 2016 and has no expiry date.

According to Matthew Nielsen, RMS senior director, regulatory affairs, clients can now use the most up to date RSM platform across all three states – Florida, Louisiana and now South Carolina – which require hurricane model approvals.

RMS released version 15.0, the latest version of the models, in May 2015. The models include:

• updates to long-term hurricane landfall frequency to comply with current HURDAT2 data;
• new medium-term rate forecast which runs through 2018, capturing recent landfalls or the lack thereof;
• updated vulnerability module which enables increased differentiation of risks across several lines of business and regions;
• improved coastline definitions to support wind-related underwriting; and,
• new functionality to manage coastal flood risk, following analysis of billions of dollars in claims from Hurricane Irene (2011) and Superstorm Sandy (2012).

The new storm surge modeling capabilities enable quantification of flood loss based on the total value of contents stored in basements and number of basement levels in a building. Location-specific content triggers for business interruption losses are also now included.

RMS models and software help financial institutions and public agencies evaluate and manage catastrophe risks worldwide.