Willis Launches New Cat Risk Modeling Service

Willis Re, the reinsurance division of global insurance broker Willis Group Holdings, announced the launch of Willis Concentrated Risk Locations (Willis Ctrl), which it described as “an exciting new risk modeling service that evaluates concentrations of property and casualty exposures within a given underwriting portfolio.”

The new modeling service “has been developed to identify exposures from perils that can be local in their effect, such as terrorism, hail, tornado, fire (including brushfire) and flood, but global in impact,” said the announcement. “In addition to identifying the exposed locations in the defined area of interest, total exposures and potential total losses can be estimated taking into account any relevant policy conditions or loss limits.”

Willis gave the following examples of the program’s capabilities. It will “enable the user to:
— Specify an area of interest, such as a city, and Willis Ctrl will scan the portfolio forphysical concentrations of risk using a sophisticated clustering algorithm
— Choose a point (such as a high profile building) and examine the exposures within a specified radius, for example half a mile
— Calculate exposures within a chosen geographic area such as a county or zip code, across multiple classes and lines of business

Julie Serakos, Willis Re’s US leader on the Willis Ctrl project stated, “Following the highly acknowledged success of Willis iFM this is another great opportunity to provide added value service to help clients make better management and underwriting decisions. The benefits of Willis Ctrl will help our clients effectively evaluate perils and exposures which have traditionally been difficult or expensive to quantify. It provides a new dimension to the understanding of risk in major areas of concern.”