South Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Enhances Data Quality for Catastrophe Modeling

January 1, 2011 / 2 min read

BOSTON, July 24, 2006 — South Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company (SCFB Mutual) is the latest insurer to contract with AIR Worldwide to use ISO HomeValue™, its web-based residential replacement cost estimator. SCFB Mutual, which also uses AIR’s CLASIC/2™ catastrophe risk management system, selected ISO HomeValue to further improve the insurance-to-value of its portfolio and streamline the incorporation of high quality replacement cost and property data into its catastrophe modeling process.

“ISO HomeValue provides us value well beyond its primary function of estimating replacement costs,” said David Wylie, vice president of underwriting at SCFB Mutual. “ISO HomeValue is an ideal means for us to capture detailed property information that is essential for quality catastrophe modeling. It also helps us with our reinsurers who value our efforts to insure to value and assess our catastrophe risk using high quality data.”

For the SCFB Mutual policyholder or insurance applicant, the use of ISO HomeValue means a local Farm Bureau Insurance agent can quickly and reliably determine a home’s replacement value. The coverage amount is critical in the event of a loss and also in calculating premium charges.

SCFB Mutual agents simply enter an address into ISO HomeValue and, in some counties, property-specific information is returned from ISO HomeValue’s detailed property database, which contains information for more than 50 million properties in the United States. Users can review that data and instantly calculate an estimate or add more detailed information to further refine the replacement cost. Detailed property information and replacement cost estimates from ISO HomeValue are then input into CLASIC/2.

“Reliable catastrophe risk assessments start with high quality exposure data including reliable replacement value estimates,” said George Davis, vice president at AIR Worldwide.

“After the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, it became evident that some insurers were not collecting and analyzing data of sufficient quality to obtain reliable modeling results. ISO HomeValue can help insurers seamlessly capture the detailed and high quality data necessary to produce meaningful catastrophe risk analyses.”

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.

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