ISO HomeValue Now Enables Insurers to Incorporate Catastrophe Risk Assessments for Improved Residential Underwriting

January 1, 2011 / 3 min read

BOSTON, Nov. 13, 2006 — The latest release of ISO HomeValue™, a leading residential replacement cost estimator, now allows personal lines insurers to assess catastrophe risk for individual properties using AIR Worldwide Corporation’s (AIR) industry standard catastrophe models. By providing access to essential catastrophe risk data from a single web-based application, ISO HomeValue enables improved underwriting decisions.

“After the large hurricane losses of 2004 and 2005, companies were reminded of the importance of assessing a property’s catastrophe risk as part of the underwriting process,” said George Davis, vice president at AIR. “However, most personal lines insurers have historically had very limited and inefficient ways to assess the catastrophe risk for individual properties. Now, ISO HomeValue provides residential underwriters with immediate catastrophe risk information at the individual property level in a seamless, efficient, and cost-effective manner.”

By accessing AIR’s catastrophe models from within ISO HomeValue, underwriters can generate real-time estimates of catastrophe risk, as characterized by the estimated average annual loss. Insurers can use this assessment of the catastrophe risk to automate, for example, simple issue/decline decisions, rating plan selection, and price adjustment under consent-to-rate procedures.

ISO HomeValue captures a wealth of property characteristics essential for catastrophe modeling, including location, construction, building type, and year built. Additional property characteristics that may mitigate damage—such as storm shutters for hurricane risk—can also be entered to assess rate credits for such structures.

In many cases, basic property data can be automatically pre-filled using the ISO PushPin™ database. ISO PushPin contains specific and detailed data on key building features for more than 50 million residential properties in the United States. Agents, underwriters, and inspectors can enter additional property information into ISO HomeValue to enhance the completeness of the data.

“By employing ISO HomeValue to gather and maintain high quality property data, insurers can obtain more reliable estimates of an individual property’s catastrophe loss potential, in addition to its replacement cost,” continued Mr. Davis.

About ISO HomeValue
ISO HomeValue is an innovative property replacement valuation system that enables insurers and their agents to make reliable estimates of the replacement cost of residential properties in the event of a total loss. By helping to ensure that property policies are written to reflect full replacement value, ISO HomeValue improves customer service by placing the correct amount of replacement coverage on a home and underwriting profitability by containing premium leakage. Its intuitive, web-based interface streamlines the replacement cost estimation process and strengthens the insurer-agency relationship. ISO HomeValue is designed with the flexibility to enhance an insurer’s unique workflow needs. It can be integrated with in-house and third-party applications, as well as with a wealth of data sources from ISO. ISO HomeValue was developed by AIR Worldwide Corporation, a subsidiary of ISO. For more information, please visit www.isohomevalue.com.

About AIR Worldwide Corporation
AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR) is a leading risk modeling company helping clients manage the financial impact of catastrophes and weather. Utilizing the latest science and technology, AIR models natural catastrophes in more than 40 countries and the risk from terrorism in the United States. Other areas of expertise include site-specific seismic engineering analysis, catastrophe bonds, and property replacement cost valuation. An ISO business, AIR was founded in 1987 to provide its insurance, reinsurance, corporate, and government clients a complete line of risk modeling software and consulting services that produce consistent and reliable results. Headquartered in Boston, AIR has additional offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.air-worldwide.com.

Release: Immediate

Contacts:
Giuseppe Barone / Erica Helton
MWW Group (for ISO)
201-507-9500
gbarone@mww.com / ehelton@mww.com

Michael Gannon (AIR Worldwide)
617-267-6645