- October 28, 2008
- Posted by: EARSC
- Category: Archive
28th October 2008 – Infoterra, a leader in the provision of geospatial products and services, has been selected by Lloyd’s to implement an innovative web-based flood risk assessment service that will help Managing Agents across their 80 syndicates to gain a geographic perspective on their exposure to flood risk.
Using the new service, each Lloyd’s Managing Agent is able to submit a complete portfolio of property addresses via a web service. The portfolio is matched against Ordnance Survey Address Layer 2 data to determine geographic location and then assigned a flood risk rating by matching location against the Environment Agency National Flood Risk Assessment database (NaFRA), which allocates high, medium and low flood risk across England & Wales. The results are made available in the form of an electronic report providing financial information accompanied by a KML file for use in the Google Earth environment. Underwriters are also able to use a web service for visualisation that helps them to establish risk at “any address” to support the pricing of new quotations.
“It was crucial that our partner for this project was able to manage and integrate millions of data records, as well as host all this data. Infoterra could do this and deliver geospatial data in a user friendly and secure manner. Also, their commercial expertise in establishing suitable licence agreements with data providers has enabled Lloyd’s to launch this valuable service,” commented Paul Nunn, Head of Exposure Management at Lloyd’s. “Infoterra has also demonstrated a real enthusiasm to work with Lloyd’s in the further development of the application.”
“This new flood risk assessment service enables the Lloyd’s Exposure Management team to provide Managing Agents with an important new decision support service,” added Gill Dickson, Divisional Sales Manager, Insurance, for Infoterra Ltd. “Agents need immediate answers to key business questions such as: ‘which of my insured properties are exposed to flood risks?’, ‘what’s our total exposure in specific geographical areas?’, as well as rapid feedback on the flood risk associated with new quotations.”
Infoterra’s Managed Services approach delivers improved risk intelligence for insurance professionals. By integrating a range of insurance perils datasets – including country-wide flood, subsidence and crime risk – with addressing, mapping, aerial photography and height data, Infoterra can provide insurers with risk ratings in a geographical context.
About Infoterra
Infoterra, wholly owned by Europe’s leading space company Astrium, is a leading provider of geo-information products and services for managing the development, environment and security of our changing world. With entities in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Hungary, its customers include international corporations, governments and authorities around the globe, and organisations such as the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Infoterra operates across a comprehensive range of markets – communications, environment, security, agriculture, defence, oil & gas exploration and many more. Furthermore, Infoterra holds the exclusive commercial exploitation rights for the high-resolution radar satellite TerraSAR-X, and plays a leading role in geo-information services within the European Kopernikus initiative of the EC and ESA.
Infoterra, together with Spot Image, form the Earth Observation Division of Astrium Services.
www.infoterra-global.com
About Lloyd’s
Lloyd’s is the world’s leading specialist insurance market. Lloyd’s underwriting capacity at 1 January 2008 is £15.95 billion, which will be underwritten through 80 syndicates (including SPS and RITC syndicates), managed by 51 managing agents and supported by 176 brokers. It is the world’s third largest non-life reinsurer, and is the second largest surplus lines insurer in the US. For more information about Lloyd’s please visit www.lloyds.com
For more information, contact:
Sarah Haslam, Infoterra Ltd, +44 (0)116 273 2300,
Cheryl Billson, PR for Infoterra, +44 (0)7791 720460, cheryl.billson@commacomms.com
