ISO Offers Reinsurers a One-Stop Source for Vital Pricing Information

January 1, 2011 / 3 min read

NEW YORK, December 7, 1998 — As the soft market challenges reinsurers to keep their prices competitive, Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO) is unveiling a package of products to help reinsurers effectively analyze and price risks.

ISO's Reinsurer Package combines sophisticated technology with industrywide data across a range of lines — commercial property, commercial auto, general liability, and medical professional liability — and puts the information into an easy-to-use Microsoft® Windows 95TM environment.

The centerpiece of the package is ISO's unique Commercial Property Size-of-Loss Database which contains information, in by-state detail, on more than 600,000 occurrences in 11 categories and 21 occupancy groups. Users can select any or all combinations of these elements. Report-generating software helps the user price any layer of reinsurance for treaties or individual risks and export the results to spreadsheet applications.

"Never before has an approach to property excess-of-loss analysis been based on such a large, broad, and current industry database," says Nolan Asch, principal of ISO's Reinsurance Division.

The Reinsurer Package also includes ISO's Multi-Distributional Increased Limits Developer (MILDSM), Homeowners Section II Loss Development software, and Excess Layer Loss Development Manuals.

MILD is a complete self-contained exposure rating model designed especially for casualty reinsurance excess-of-loss pricing (general liability, medical professional liability, and commercial auto liability). Reinsurers can use MILD to customize ISO's Increased Limits Analysis by changing underlying assumptions, such as trend, risk load, and loss adjustment expenses. Additionally, MILD users can take advantage of ISO's unique allocated loss adjustment expenses (ALAE) model, which shows how ALAE varies with size of loss, and allows for pricing of layers with ALAE included within treaty limits. Another unique feature is the development, for the first time ever, of a joint distribution of loss plus ALAE based on the ISO database. MILD can also help insurers that purchase reinsurance, sell excess-of-loss policies, or sell policies with large limits of liability.
The Homeowners Section II component of the Reinsurer Package provides loss development factors, and the data used to generate them, for a homeowners policy's liability coverages. Users can choose either standard layers of loss or customized layers of loss. Reinsurers can use the Homeowners Section II software for actuarial analysis of homeowners pricing, pricing of reinsurance contracts, pricing of excess layers or umbrella coverage, and calculation of retention levels.
ISO's Excess Layer Loss Development Manuals are the fourth component in ISO's Reinsurer Package. A reinsurer can use them to compare its loss development patterns with ISO's aggregate loss development patterns for commercial auto liability, general liability, and medical professional liability. ISO offers the data with ALAE excluded, ALAE included with indemnity before being allocated to layer, and ALAE allocated to layer in the same proportion as indemnity.

Reinsurers may buy ISO's Reinsurer Package or any of its components separately. For more information, call ISO's customer service department at 1-800-888-4476.

Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO) provides information about property/casualty insurance, including statistics, underwriting and claims information, actuarial analyses and consulting, policy language, and related information and technical services to participants in the property/casualty insurance market. ISO's database, with 5.5 billion detailed insurance premium and loss records, is one of the largest private databases in the world. ISO serves more than 2,900 insurers and reinsurers, as well as agents, brokers, self-insureds, regulators, and risk managers with information on 18 lines of property/casualty insurance.

Release: Immediate

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