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EQECAT President Urges Open Standard for Risk Modeling Data
to Better Manage Catastrophe Loss Exposure
Also Announces New Products Geared Toward Managing Catastrophe
Losses Due to Tornados, Hail, Winter Storms, Wildfire Perils
February 25, 2004
(Orlando,
FL --)
The global insurance industry should use its collective influence to press for
an open standard for risk data used in modeling to more effectively assess and
manage catastrophe loss exposure, Rick Clinton, president, EQECAT, Inc., told
insurers and other industry executives at the company's "2004 Catastrophe Management
Summit," here.
EQECAT, the authority in extreme risk modeling, provides
leading insurance companies worldwide with innovative, reliable
and technically robust tools and solutions, covering natural
hazards in 88 countries, the highest number of any organization.
"It doesn't make any sense for all of the modeling companies
to force users to adapt to their proprietary data formats
to model the same exposures," Mr. Clinton said. "All this
does is cause more work with very little benefit," he said.
New Products Geared Toward Tornado, Hail, Winter Storm,
Wildfire Perils
In addition, Mr. Clinton announced new models for managing
risks due to tornado, hail, winter storm, and wildfire perils,
which combined have historically caused considerably greater
loss than earthquakes and hurricanes.
Over the last 20 years, these kinds of natural catastrophes
have caused more than 50 percent of insurer natural catastrophe
losses, in the United States. As a result, these additional
perils are impacting the financial results of insurance companies
significantly, Mr. Clinton said.
With the introduction of these new models, companies now
have the ability to use state-of-the-art technology to assess
and manage this exposure. EQECAT offers the most comprehensive
set of models for managing U.S. property risk, including
earthquake shake, fire (following earthquakes), sprinkler
leakage, hurricane, tornado, hail, winter storm (ice), flood
and wildfire.
EQECAT Working with ACORD on Open Data Standard
Discussing the need for an open data standard, Mr. Clinton
said EQECAT is doing its part to bring about uniformity and "is
working with The Association for Cooperative Operations Research
and Development ( ACORD) to achieve this goal." In addition,
he said, "EQECAT was the first catastrophe modeling company
to be able to accommodate data in the Cresta Plus format,
a market standard for electronic reporting of insurers' exposure
data. "
Once finalized, EQECAT will adopt the ACORD property insurance
data standard, an open source standard. ACORD is a global,
nonprofit insurance association whose mission is to facilitate
the development and use of standards for the insurance, reinsurance
and related financial services industries.
Data provided to reinsurers often are inadequate and considered
a serious problem, Mr. Clinton said. Brokers and insurers
record exposure information in different ways. "Using a standard
format will enable all parties to examine exposure data more
efficiently and get a better overall view of exposure to
catastrophic events. This in turn can lead to a more favorable
view of the insurer's exposure, and a better overall program," he
said.
A data standard enables multiple models to be utilized
for a more comprehensive view of risk without imposing additional
cost of individually formatting the necessary input to the
models.
Clinton Unveils New Marketing Tagline
At the conference, Mr. Clinton also unveiled EQECAT's new
marketing tagline, "The Technology Leader: Solutions Through
Innovation."
Mr. Clinton said the new tagline best defines the company's
vision, abilities and direction going forward, to assist
its clients to deal with managing and developing effective
solutions to increasing perils worldwide.
EQECAT Serves Global Insurance, Business, Financial Services
EQECAT, an affiliate of ABSG Consulting Inc., serves the
global property and casualty insurance industry, major multinational
corporations and financial institutions. EQECAT is known
as the technical leader and innovator in the development
of analysis tools and methodologies to quantify insurers
and major corporations exposure to natural and manmade catastrophic
risk.
It is a recognized industry thought-leader providing the
expertise and real-world tested tools to turn risk-theory
into innovative actions and solutions to effectively manage
extreme- risk worldwide. EQECAT's flagship product, WORLDCATenterprise
is a multi-user platform to evaluating insured risks for
multiple natural catastrophe perils in 88 countries.
EQECAT was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Oakland,
California. ABSG Consulting Inc., headquartered in Houston,
Texas, has risk-management revenues of more than $140 million,
and more than 1,000 employees worldwide. For additional information,
please log on to www.absconsulting.com,
or www.EQECAT.com.
For more information, contact:
Tom Larsen
EQECAT, Inc.
1-510-817-3100 | tlarsen@absconsulting.com
Eric R. Samansky
The Samansky Group
1-516-319-0858 | eric@samanskygroup.com |
